Aether School of Magic
by Persephone the Ravenclaw
Summary: Harry's on the hunt for horcruxes without Ron and Hermione. It's a good thing he's got the help of his pseudo uncles and friends from his new school. That is of course if he survives the schoolyear.
1. Beginnings

**Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series belongs to J. K. Rowling.**

 **A/N: Yo! I've been waiting to publish this story for a while. I read a fic about Harry going to a heavy duty school with other magical creatures some time ago and I guess I got inspired. Please please please review, and if I spelled something wrong or I got my facts wrong please tell me. (In a nice way.) Anyway here's to hoping you'll like it!**

Harry thought long and hard about his next decision. While it was true Ron and Hermione could be of use on his horcrux hunting mission, the opposite was just as likely, if not more. Also, loathe as he was to admit it Ron and Hermione wouldn't understand if someone ended up as collateral damage on the mission because after all they were nothing like him. Harry was cynical, a realist with a sadistic streak a mile wide, Ron and Hermione still saw life through the rosy spectacles of childhood. It was wartime and Harry had grown up, leaving behind his first real friends in the wizarding world. Unfortunately Ron and Hermione weren't the only ones with rosy spectacles. Most of the wizarding world expected him to be their maudlin, bleeding heart savior. They must be delusional. The only people who could see Harry for who he truly was were the twins and Remus. Once upon a time Sirius had also been on that list, but now he was dead, and with his death had come one shocking development after another. Harry had been called in for Sirius's will reading and one of the goblins had asked him about his plans as the Head of the Ancient House of Potter. When he admitted that he had no clue he was the head of the house the goblins had dragged him into a meeting with Ragnok to correct someone's oversight.

Which brings him to where he was now in an office with the equivalent of a goblin king asking him about his top-secret business with Dumbledore. "Do you intend to bring Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger with you on your hunt for Tom Riddle's soul shards?"

"Excuse me but how do you know about the horcruxes?" Ragnok sighed impatiently.

"Just answer the question Lord Potter."

"No." The goblin grinned at him.

"Excellent, as to your question goblins have a way to sense wrong magic. Soul shards are against the laws of nature, and drive the person who created them to insanity. There is currently a horcrux in the bank placed inside one Bellatrix Lestrange's vault. That one is being destroyed as we speak. The rest are up to you to find and destroy. As this is the case the goblin nation will stand by you and offer our help in this endeavor. We could not reveal this to your allies as this is sensitive information." Harry nodded, the goblins didn't offer their aid often, or at all really. This would be the first case of a goblin helping a human in centuries, since the last goblin war.

"Why are you helping me?"

"Soul shards are abominations, we will do anything to eradicate the lot of them. Also you are not like other wizards, one day you will be a very powerful ally. When that time comes we will ask for a favor." Harry nodded that was a fair trade. "Now, regarding your lordship I am frankly astonished this hasn't come up yet. Your parents' had a joint will, but Headmaster Dumbledore sealed it. Reading it now it seems your parents anticipated this move. You are of course the sole benfactor, they've asked that you read the letters left for you in the family vault and the family grimoire. I'll have a goblin bring you down to the main vault now."

"I've been in the vault. There are no letters, only gold."

"No, you've been in your trust vault. I'm unsurprised Dumbledore has kept you in the dark about your actual monetary situation. He usurped the position of magical guardian and gave you to Mrs. Potter's sister against her express wishes. He has assumed that because Mr. Riddle turned you into a soul container you would have to die to kill Mr. Riddle. Rather incorrectly assumed." Harry sighed, he wasn't really surprised, Dumbledore meddled where he shouldn't and was blind to anything that went against what he believed.

"Very well. Oh hello Griphook, how are you?" He addressed the last of his comment to the goblin who had just entered the room. Griphook looked startled.

"You can differentiate between goblins Lord Potter?" Harry nodded.

"The differences are fairly obvious. Your skin is greener than Ragnok's, you're taller, your ears have a curve and you have a mole on your left cheek. Aside from that you looked familiar." Ragnok stared in speculation.

"Well I suppose you really are different from most wizards. Anyway Griphook can you take Lord Potter down to his main vault?" Griphook nodded and led Harry to an elevator.

"Wait aren't we supposed to go in a cart?" Griphook smiled.

"Oh that's just for show. Depending on how high regard a client is held in we'll treat them better. Your family is in very high regard being from old money and treating goblins with respect. As a matter of fact you are the last direct descendant of Merlin himself. Also the first time someone comes to Gringotts we take the carts." The elevator dinged and Griphook took Harry down to the inner sanctum of the bank. There he showed Harry to a set of iron doors. "Here's your vault, you can take anything or everything. Just make sure you have somewhere to put it all." He pushed open the doors and Harry stood in awe. There were of course galleons, sickles, and knuts galore, but even more impressive were the artifacts the vault was mostly comprised of. It didn't take long to find the letters Ragnok had mentioned. Harry sat down on a chaise and opened the letters. They were from his parents and the other three Marauders. He tore open the joint letter first.

To our dearest Bambi;

Hi son! To tell the truth I don't really know what to write so I'll start with that I hope you aren't reading this. Because if you are it means your mother and I are dead and our plan to off Moldy Voldy failed. To start with there's a prophecy about you and Moldy, if you haven't heard it yet ask Dumbledore. Also once you've awoken them I'm sure Moony has the prophecy memorized. The real Marauders with the exception of myself and your mother are in this room. They'll help you kill off Moldy and get your life on track from however thoroughly Dumbledore derailed it. Make sure to call them Uncle Padfoot, Moony, and Wormtail. Well I'll hand you off to your mother. Wherever you go and whatever you do I'm proud of you and I love you. Always. –Dad (Prongs)

Hullo Harry! Oh I wish I could see you, I'm sure you look exactly like your father. You do already, but with my eyes of course. Now first things first, while we did attend Hogwarts we the Marauders didn't attend for all 7 years. We've also modified most people's memories of the 6 years we did attend. That we learned at the Aether, a graduate school of sorts. I'm sure you haven't heard of the Aether, that's because it's situated in another reality. Also mortal humans almost never attend the school. We learned of the school through Sirius. Be aware that most of the magic's taught at Aether aren't legal or are incredibly rare. We hope Aether can give you an edge over Moldyshorts. Sirius will explain about the school. I love you Harry, never forget that. –Mum (Furball)

Oi Prongslet, how are ya? Good? Good. Now then I'll explain the Aether. Aether can teach you how to raise the dead, how to throw a punch and everything in between. Aside from that the school has a 50% mortality rate, or 75% for mortal humans. Not that many mortal human students make it into the Aether. However, if you can make it (and we believe you can) you'll become part of an elite fighting force that takes care of it's own. The reason we're telling you this is that the Aether teaches certain classes that can help you destroy Voldemrot. I recommend Cruor Sorcery, but I'll discuss this with you in depth when you re-animate us. Lots of Love to you Bambi. See ya in a bit. –Padfoot

Hey there Harry! I've been nominated to explain the stasis chambers we're in and Wormtail will explain why you shouldn't hate him. Not that I see why you should hate him, whatever you've been told is probably completely inaccurate. Anyway the chambers were the brainchild of myself and Furball. We watched an episode of Star Trek and started trying to work out the mechanics of a couple of their devices. The stasis chamber basically put us into a deep sleep. Now in the back of the vault is a multicolor trunk with a stag, grim, werewolf, rat, and a raccoon embossed on it. Open it and you'll find a staircase leading down. At the bottom of the staircase you'll find what's left of the Marauders in glass tubes. Hit the big red button to the left of the tubes. I look forward to seeing you again Cub. –Moony

Hullo Bambi! I'm going to explain our failed plan. Dumbledore came to Prongs and Furball with some prophecy about you defeating Voldie fed to him by that fake seer Trelawney. Normally this wouldn't have concerned us, but a spy heard the beginning of the prophecy and reported to his master. Anyway I became a spy in order to feed him your parents' location where we would set up a giant trap to off Voldie. In order to clear Voldie of any suspicions I switched out with my golem, a weak blithering idiot who would do anything for power. Apparently something went wrong and well here we are. Hope that clears things up, I'll see you soon Bambi!

-Wormtail

This was quite a bit of information to process. The people he'd met weren't really his pseudo uncles, they were just pale imitations, and not very good imitations if he understood the information correctly. And what was this about another school his parents and uncles wanted him to go to? A school he only had a 25% chance of surviving, well unless there was something he was missing. Absently he wondered how all 5 Marauders made it through. Some kind of anomaly that gave them an edge over the other students? He also wondered if he had it and that was why his parents were so comfortable suggesting a school with only a 25% survival rate for mortal humans. Which brought him to another point, if the school was not comprised of humans what kinds of sentient magical creatures existed. Vampires and the like were myths weren't they? Lockhart had professed to kill one, but he'd written it off as insanity. Well he would be able to ask Uncle Moony when he exited the chamber. Putting his thoughts aside he went in search of the trunk. Sure enough said trunk had a staircase leading down. He conjured a floating light wandlessly and made his way down the stairs. At the bottom were glass tubes capped with a blood red wood and inside were his floating uncles. The big red button to the left read 'Do Not Press' but he went with his instinct and hit it. Immediately the tubes ejected their captives.


	2. Meeting the Marauders

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me unfortunately.**

 **A/N: Hi everybody I'm ecstatic that you're following my story so a shout out to Erris Wagenaar, HalfDemonDaughter, Rusher156165165, The Omnitrix Conquer, and raveygirl17. In celebration of my first five follows I've decided to post this early. Thanks guys!**

Padfoot was the first one back on his feet.

"Whoa! That was awesome let's do it again sometime!" Harry laughed Sirius would always be the same old Sirius. "Hullo Prongslet! What's the date?"

"Padfoot what's wrong with you? Honestly, 'let's do it again'? Sorry cub his head isn't screwed on properly yet from the last time he and Prongs tried to become muggle stuntsmen." Harry stifled a chuckle. Sirius pouted and swatted at him. "Now then let's see what Furball did to disguise us. After that we'll answer all of your questions." With that Remus wandlessly conjured 3 floor length mirrors. Peter shrieked.

"What? Oh she's evil. Finite Incantatem!" Peter started shifting shape as soon as he cast the spell. First he grew taller and then he lost most of his fat. The last thing Harry noticed was that Peter looked 25 or somewhere close. Finally he stopped shifting, his hair was dirty blonde and remarkably short, he was lean, and for some reason he had mouse ears. He looked over at his dogfather and other uncle. Both were also built well. Padfoot's hair had blue streaks with dog ears perked up between them. Most of the tattoos Harry was accustomed to seeing were there, but a few had been swapped out for other symbols. Remus looked healthier, now there was no gray, and his werewolf bites were all gone. As with the others Remus had wolf ears, Harry was starting to wonder what the story on the ears was. Remus and Sirius looked like they were Peter's age.

"Now that we've fixed the damage are there any questions you have before we start explaining about Aether? Such as why we only look 8 or so years older than you." Harry shook his head.

"I just guessed that the purpose of the chambers was to keep you frozen in time until the button was pressed. The enchantments are centered around the wood, but there's something else. Blood runes on the wood maybe? Which is why you didn't use metal. Metal would've melted, but wood is a safe medium as long as you don't overpower it. Lastly the wood isn't anything I've ever encountered before, the kinds of runes that work with time overpower all naturally occurring woods." The Marauders stared at him. Peter chuckled,

"Bloody hell! Prongs' looks and Furball's brains, that's one hell of a combo. Oh and James's knack for trouble. We'll have a devil of a time with you I can already tell." The last part was said with a grin as if he was anticipating the adventures they'd find themselves in. Harry didn't notice a galleon changing hands and Sirius's smug grin after that statement, "Anyway it's good to see you again Bambi. I'm sorry about what that Peter did." Harry shook his head.

"No apology necessary Uncle Wormtail. You've already explained why he acted the way he did. Why would I fault you for something you had no control over?" Peter pulled Harry into a hug and Harry instinctually tensed, then relaxed. Remus made his way over next and Sirius followed with an exclamation of,

"Group hug!" Remus whacked Sirius over the head with a bat he'd conjured. "Ow abuse! What the hell Moony? Is it your time of the month or something?" Sirius kept talking but Remus silenced him also wandlessly.

Harry was starting to wonder at the wandless and wordless charms the Marauders were using. So far he hadn't seen anyone's wand and they'd used several spells. Supposedly only very powerful wizards could do wandless and wordless magic, such as Dumbledore. This had confused Harry, after all what was accidental magic if not wandless and wordless magic performed by young children. Any parent or kid could tell you that accidental magic wasn't an accident at all. A stimulus was introduced and magic tries to correct the problem. For example his first apparation when he was 8, he needed to get away from Dudley and his gang and his magic took him somewhere Dudley couldn't possibly reach him. Other times when experiencing a strong emotion his magic would respond. Which led Harry to believe it was at least partially sentient. After that Harry decided it would be prudent to learn how to cast wandless and wordless magic, so he found time to practice. Sure his essays had suffered for it, but that served two purposes. Firstly it prevented Hermione from having a conniption because he could achieve better grades and secondly with the time he would normally spend refining his essays he learned how potions worked and how to cast every spell in his arsenal without a wand or spoken incantation. Regardless wizards seemed to lose any shred of common sense when it came to magic. At first Harry wasn't sure if he was truly exceptional or if it was just a lack of common sense in wizard genes. After the Marauders' little display earlier he was betting on the latter.

"Okay Prongslet have you read the last two letters from your mum and dad or the journals attached? No? Well I guess I'll do my best to explain the Aether with these two dunderheads filling in whatever I miss." Peter gave Sirius a 'who on Earth do you think you're kidding look?' And Remus ignored the slur. "To start with the Aether is the best school of magic to ever exist. Every form of magic from the beginning of time is still practiced on school grounds. They also accept approximately 500 students every year, out of those students 250 are expected survive until graduation. Aether exists in another reality created by the school's founders thousands of years ago. There isn't a house system, but Aether is a boarding school. You'll be given a suite, which you are expected to furnish. There is no curfew, but we'd recommend being in your suite before 11 PM if you don't want to become a vampire's midnight snack. That's another thing as I explained in the letter at Aether mortal humans are a very small minority. The class will be comprised of vampires, djinns, weres, centaurs, goblins, elves, fae and the occasional gnome or dwarf. I'd recommend you learn the difference before you go. Also be aware there are no repercussions for killing another student besides the possibility of friends and family taking revenge. The only reason this may not apply is if you are challenged to a formal duel. If you are killed in a formal duel we cannot avenge you, so don't go challenging anyone unless you're 100% sure you'll win." At this Sirius gave him a feral grin. "Granted students that try to off each other with poisons and the like are considered cowards and shunned. Also you have to be an animagus and an occlumens to attend the school. Which means you have a month to learn both, sorry about that prongslet. Now let's see what am I missing?" Remus answered first,

"You'll be attending this school until you die or turn 21. I'd recommend you also keep on the good side of the teachers. If you try to run away a teacher will hunt you down and either kill you or drag you back to class. They're also allowed to kill you if you piss them off sufficiently. Please don't annoy them and just for good measure avoid Cyrus, he hates humans in general. He's the Head Animus Sorcerer and he's one of the old school fae who still believe humans are nothing more than vermin." Peter took it from there,

"Another thing you should know is that the Aether has special wards preventing anyone from sharing the school's secrets. In these wards is a special tracker that'll attach itself to your magic. That's how they can find missing students. Not that they actually care if you miss class, the tracker is just to find students who've skipped town trying to escape. Lastly if you're going to be late to a class don't go because the punishment is heavier for interrupting a teacher than missing a class. Actually there isn't a punishment for not going to class. Aether isn't like Hogwarts, if you miss class the price is that you won't know the material you would've covered. Which means you'll fail tests and eventually the class if you skip enough. If you fail Aether you will be killed. They refuse to graduate a student who failed their classes." From what Harry had understood so far he was starting to understand that Aether was a school he'd either love or absolutely hate. "Any questions?" Harry shook his head still processing what he'd been told.

The quiet was eventually interrupted by Padfoot who was bouncing off the walls. Literally. "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" He chanted over and over.

"Umm about that… As far as everyone out there is concerned Uncle Paddy died last year and Uncle Wormy is a death eater and you're all like in your 40's. How are you going to explain this? And more importantly how are we going to explain this to the goblins?"

"Actually Wormtail and I are dead here now as well. The golems have a self-destruct button, and when we woke up they automatically self-destructed. But I see the problem, we'll wear disguises. As for the goblins, well we'd have to be suicidal to not explain this back when we decided to enact this plan." With that Sirius and Remus changed their hair and eye colors. Peter looked so different they figured no one would be able to figure out who he was anyway. Before they left Remus showed Harry to the library in the vault to find books on Occlumency, Animagi, and other things to keep him occupied for the next month.

"Where are you staying anyway? It's not like Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon will approve of you guys staying with me." Remus eyes flashed gold.

"You mean Furball's sister and brother-in-law? That's who Dumbledore entrusted your safety to?" All Harry could do was nod under Remus' angry glare. Remus snarled and even Sirius had stopped bouncing. The three men had gone from fairly happy to spitting mad in about 5 seconds. Then they'd gone completely melancholic, Harry was getting whiplash. "We're sorry cub, we should've known Dumbledore wouldn't listen to Furball. After all Dumbledore can't imagine a family member holding such a strong grudge against another family member. We should've had some kind of safeguard to ensure you ended up with someone else."

"Don't worry about it. It's Dumbledore's fault, and the blame lies solely with him. Mum and Dad expressly wrote in their will that under no circumstances was I to be placed in the Dursleys' care. Dumbledore made the executive decision to leave me there against their wishes. Now answer my question where are you staying?" Peter grinned,

"The correct question Bambi is 'where are _we_ staying?' And for your answer: we can stay in one of the Pettigrew properties in the Infinitium Reality."

"What do you mean Infinitium Reality? You said earlier that Aether was in another reality. What's a reality?" Remus went into professor Lupin mode.

"Have you ever heard of the theory that there are an infinite number of universes side by side? Okay good well that's not perfectly accurate. The correct thing to say would be that there are an infinite number of realities and they aren't flush against each other. There are cracks in between called 'the Void' which is basically just a vacuum. Every reality has a name chosen by it's distinguishing trait, Infinitium has no end as far as we've been able to figure. Aether Reality was created expressly for the school and ends at the borders of the school. You'll see what I mean when you go." Finally they made their way out of the bank vault getting a nod from Griphook. But before they left Harry took a mahogany trunk with the words 'Praesis ut Prosis ne ut Imperes' inscribed in a crest. He made a note to look up what it meant later as it was probably his family's motto guessing by the fact he'd found it in his family vault.

"My orders are to take you to a medic now." Harry was confused, he was grateful for all the help he'd received from the goblins so far, but a medic? It seemed to be a little much. Apparently Peter's mind was going the same way,

"A medic? Why would Harry need to see a medic?"

"I'm sure it has something to do with the soul shard in Lord Potter's scar." The soul shard was in his scar? Harry's hand flew up to his scar. It made sense in a twisted way that the soul shard would be in his scar. After all every time he was anywhere near Tom his scar started pulsing. Sirius and the others seemed to understand what the soul shard was though,

"Rightio then, lead the way!" Griphook led him down some tunnels approaching the heart of Gringotts. Humans weren't often led down here, and most that were never saw the light of day again. Not a happy thought, but the goblins did want him to go destroy the horcruxes so he doubted they'd try to kill him. Eventually they reached a door with a caduceus inscribed and Griphook pulled open the doors. Inside was a cave with a several goblins. There was a row of beds and he watched as the goblin healers used wandless magic in their healing. Most of the injuries seemed related to exploding inventions, but one healer was removing poison in a stream from an open stomach wound. As they shut the door a goblin healer approached them,

"Hello Lord Potter. I'm sure you've been told why you are here, I am healer Silvertooth and I'll be performing the removal ritual if you will follow me." She led them to a bed at the opposite end of the room. He sat down on the bed and watched as she inscribed runes on either end of the bed. Sirius grinned and gave him a thumbs up, Remus studied the runes she was drawing, and Peter sort of stood off to the side analyzing the other goblins in the room. Silvertooth started chanting in what sounded like Gobbledegook, Harry saw a brief flash of white before passing out.

 **Right just a quick word, I'm going to do the next month until Harry goes to Aether in one chapter. Or at least I'm going to try. Review pretty pretty please with a cherry on top.**


	3. Infinitium Reality

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling despite my wishes otherwise.**

 **A/N: This chapter took so long to write and I was half asleep when I edited it, I apologize for any serious mistakes. I know this is the longest chapter I've written so far, but I hope to keep the chapters from here on out 5,000 words or more. Anyway enjoy!**

When Harry came to he was in the same room he'd been in before with his three pseudo uncles' worried faces above him. Sirius was poking his face at random intervals.

"Paddy, poking cub's face will not wake him up, and poking his face repeatedly will not wake him any faster." At this Harry opened his eyes.

"See Moony! Prongslet did you wake up because I was poking you or not?"

"Moony, Paddy, maybe we should stop crowding him and let him breathe." Peter pulled the other two Marauders away from Harry. "Rise and shine Bambi, you've been out for almost an hour." Harry's waking up had obviously summoned his healer and for whatever reason Ragnok had come with her. Every single able goblin in the ward had stood up and saluted their leader in unison. Ragnok was unfazed.

"Hello Lord Potter how are you feeling?" Harry's three guardians stared in shock as Harry and Ragnok exchanged greetings.

"No need to be so formal you've done me a great service. Call me Harry." Ragnok grinned in that ferocious goblin way.

"You are aware this is the first time a goblin has been on first-name terms with a human since the war Harry?" Harry nodded.

"What will they do? Order me to be rude to you? I'm sure even the ministry isn't that stupid. They've left all their money in your vaults, you could make all of them paupers and where would that leave people like the Malfoys? Also Gringotts has only ever been broken into once and I suspect that was a ruse." Ragnok looked at Harry speculatively.

"Of course it was. And I've always suspected that your clueless act was just an act. Thank you for confirming it for me." Harry shrugged sheepishly. "Now then back to business. Aether has confirmed to us that you are on their roster for school this year. I'm sure you'll be taking Soul Magic so that you can destroy the last of the horcruxes. I'm afraid we won't be able to destroy or locate the last three horcruxes, for now all we can do is confirm that there are three left. I've spoken to our king, Jareth has decided you will have the aid of the goblins and hobgoblins across the realities in your future endeavors." Harry smiled and nodded.

"I owe you a life-debt Ragnok." He pulled out his wand. "I, Harry James Potter, swear on my magic that I will do anything I can to aid you, Ragnok, until my life debt is repaid." Harry's uncles gaped, but Ragnok acknowleged the debt,

"So mote it be." A golden glow signified the completion of the oath. "Well then Harry, I will escort you all out of the bank. Come again soon." With that Ragnok escorted Harry, Sirius, Remus, and Peter to the doors of the bank. There he shook their hands and well aware of the bystanders made his dramatic exit as dramatic as it could be for someone 4'5". Remus finally regained his ability to speak as they made their way down Diagon Alley.

"Harry you never fail to surprise me. You're on first name terms with the leader of the goblins in Earth Reality, can call on goblins to help you, and you owe a goblin a life-debt. You are aware of the ramifications of this right? The only ways to cancel that life-debt are to save his life or for him to explicitly say that he's cancelled your debt. Granted it will also garner respect from the goblins and hobgoblins. It is a good thing you'll have allies at the Aether." Harry remembered he had a question from earlier.

"Speaking of which, you said that out of the 8 students who attend Aether every year only 2 or so graduate. Why did you all survive?" Sirius decided to explain this one.

"We aren't human prongslet. Remus is a werewolf, and both Peter and I are fae. The two humans who graduated from Aether from our class were your Mum and Dad. Both of whom had ridiculously large magical cores, and a couple of special abilities you'll start noticing sometime soon. Actually I suspect Prongs wasn't completely human anyway. There were actually 10 humans that year and one more human graduated, but we don't count him because he was turned into a vampire unwillingly when he was 19." Special abilities, what special abilities would he not have noticed? Well actually the real question was what special abilities would he have noticed. He hadn't been able to use magic since the end of the school year and somehow he knew these special abilities had something to do with his birthday, which was today. Peter cut in,

"Speaking of special abilities, how far along are you in wandless magic? You're going to need to know a bit more than 'really powerful mages can use wandless magic' to go to a school like the Aether." Harry, despite rationally knowing that Peter couldn't possibly know how far along he was in magic, was annoyed that they thought he was that far behind. In retaliation he charmed Peter's hair bright pink. Sirius and Remus stifled their laughter while Peter looked at them confused.

"Well that answers our question. I always wondered why Furball and Prongs were so good at wandless magic, maybe it's hereditary." Harry finally conjured a mirror for Peter who immediately used a Finite Incantatem to realize it wouldn't work.

"Alright Bambi, as much as I appreciate the joke we're attracting the attention of everyone in the alley and you aren't diguised." Harry immediately took off the charm. Sirius on the other hand disguised Harry with a wave of his hand and charmed Peter's hair pink with purple spots. Peter grinned, "That my dear Padfoot was a formal declaration of war. I'd watch myself carefully for the next month or so if I were you." Harry poked Remus,

"Should I be worried?" Remus shook his head.

"Don't waste your time worrying, prepare for anything and prepare a couple retaliatory pranks just in case. There's no such thing as bystanders when two Marauders are involved in a prank war, even less so when they're on opposite sides." Harry nodded while trying to figure out how mad Sirius would get if he charmed his room green and silver for a week. They kept moving down the street.

"Another thing, you should probably get a new wand and maybe some new clothes. I'm not up to date on current Muggle fashion, but I very highly doubt your clothes are supposed to be filthy, dirty, and several sizes too big for you. I hope you'll allow us to get revenge on the Dursleys cub." Moony used his puppy dog eyes which worked fairly well given he was older than Harry by like 8 years.

"Sure thing if there's anything left when I'm through with them." Harry's smile was terrifying and the three Marauders realized there was really nothing they could do to match the kind of terror Harry would inflict on his former guardians. Sirius looked halfway between scared and proud.

"Guess he really did inherit Furball's sadistic streak." Sirius shivered in fear.

"Back to what you were saying earlier, there aren't any wandmakers left we could use. Ollivander disappeared, and if there are any wandmakers left in Knockturn Alley they're either heavily supervised or Tom's allies. I'm perfectly willing to go clothes shopping though." Sirius transfigured Harry's clothes into something he deemed appropriate for shopping.

"Don't worry about the human wandmakers. We're getting you a proper wand and we'll be getting our own while we're at it. We're going shopping in Infinitium Reality. Now let's get to the transfer point. You're going to love this prongslet." With that the three Marauders took off down the Alley twisting and turning, Harry followed slightly slower and he bumped into a couple of people. It went on this way for about 7 minutes until they finally pulled to a stop in front of a building Harry was sure he'd never seen before. It was a sparkling sapphire blue dome with bronze stars painted all over it. Harry had taken enough Astrology to see that the position of the stars was a perfect miniature replica of the night sky yesterday. In front was a pair of ornate golden French doors. He couldn't make out anything through the windows. Sirius being Sirius ran to the doors and flung them open, screaming I'm back at the top of his lungs. Remus and Peter shared a look before strolling in. Harry followed last examining the walls which were the same as the outside. People were constantly coming in and out pressing a star and disappearing in different colored glows. In the center of the room other people were porting in. Peter explained in as low of a voice as he could manage.

"This is what we call a gateway, it's the only way to get from one reality to another. There's several in every reality, we're lucky enough to have this one in the most convenient place possible for now at least. Gateways shift location every couple of weeks. Every star represents a different gateway, or rather more accurately every star is another gateway. There's three main realities Aether, Earth, and Infinitium, the rest are private properties. We've had such fun convincing the muggles and some magicals that Mars is a barren wasteland and that you can't stand on Jupiter because you'd fall straight through to the center. Anyway, Infinitium Reality is that one over there. I believe the muggles call it the North Star. Wandlessly float yourself up to the star and press it." Harry watched as Sirius went first, followed by Remus, then it was his turn. He imagined himself floating towards the star, but he couldn't manage it. Peter understood the problem.

"Sorry Bambi, I totally forgot you need to have a grasp on basic elemental magic before you can levitate yourself, for now just stay still." Harry felt as Peter changed the air currents around him and floated him towards the Infinitium star. He reached out to touch it and fell straight down into the other gateway before catching himself in the air. He tried controlling the air currents around him and kept himself floating and went towards his uncles. Peter followed after him. "That's your special ability from Prongs. He had mage sight and it seems you have some variant. It's very useful for learning pranking charms." Remus opened the doors this time and turned around to face Harry,

"Welcome to Infinitium Reality cub!" A wide-eyed harry stared at the street he was on. All around him were people chattering loudly in what seemed to be many different languages. Some were short, others were tall, some had wings, others had tails, almost everyone had brilliantly colored skin. Fashion here was also very different, he saw one cerulean blue woman who had white eyes and her red hair looked like a staircase. She also had pixie wings and a dress that shone like the sun. He also saw a man with forest green dreadlocks who was a bright pink color that somehow didn't clash with his hair. He was wearing a crisp white business suit. Harry then turned his attention to the shops. Harry was sure new colors that he'd never seen on earth existed here, but seeing as he couldn't compare he promptly forgot about that.

What was much more interesting was the bookstore directly in front of him. The store itself was pretty impressive. Harry estimated it was about 300 ft. high, and 40 ft. wide, at it's widest and longest. More impressive was it's shape. It was literally a ball… and it was rolling along with all the people inside it. He pulled his dogfather with him into the store and just stared in awe. Despite all the rolling not a single book was out of place and he could feel an artificial gravity pulling everyone in the ball to the ground. Gravity here was about as strong as it was at sea level on Earth, but it was slightly disconcerting to watch the windows roll about constantly. Then Harry's attention was pulled to the books. Titles were all in different languages that he couldn't understand.

"Hey Padfoot what language is that?" Sirius peered at the random book Harry had pointed at.

"It's Common, can't you read it?" Harry shook his head. "Oh that's right I forgot, give me a second." Sirius rummaged through his pockets looking for his wand presumably. He finally pulled it out, gave it a wave, and said, "Transferendum!" Information came to Harry instantly. The spell was a charm to translate languages that was permanent. Everyone in the realities used it to understand what others were saying and with a few notable exceptions such as Mermish and Parseltongue it worked and was fairly standard. Harry could finally read what the books said and chose a book on Occlumency and curled up in a convenient inglenook. The Marauders shook their heads, for all Harry looked like James, he was Lily's son through and through. Inherently curious and quick-witted, he'd have no trouble eradicating the Dark lord. After an hour or so Harry had a pile of books on Occlumency and Animagi and was ready to purchase. They took him to the next shop a wandmaker who they guessed was probably a vampire. He was fairly friendly, but he did some weird smelling thing when Harry first entered the shop.

"Choose a wood and a core from the back. I'd recommend Black Walnut given your elemental affinities." Harry just shruggd and went off in search of his wood and core. As the wandmaker said Harry had a strong connection to a Black Walnut wood, and an even stronger connection to a Hungarian Horntail's heartstring. Harry remembered the dragon he'd faced in fourth year and decided it was a good thing his wand was made of such a strong material. The wandmaker eyed him speculatively and shortened the wood to 12 inches. "The Horntail I harvested this heartstring from was particularly vicious, will you be going to Aether this year?" He just nodded. "Excellent tell Cyrus that Jahan especially recommended you for his class. If he decides to be judgmental about you being human tell him to take a look at your wand and my note. Do this before the school year starts otherwise he may decide to exclude you anyway." Jahan scribbled a note in what looked like Persian, he wondered why the translating charm wasn't working. Then Jahan shooed him out of his shop. He met his guardians at the door and showed them his new wand, and the strange note along with an explanation of what had transpired inside the shop. Peter was the first to speak up,

"Cyrus is a particularly tricky djinn who trains the elementals at Aether. You have to be a natural elemental to get into his class and even then he'll do his best to eradicate any mortal human students who show a proficiency in the subject. However, Jahan is his brother. He's not likely to ignore his brother's commendation. Still, I suppose you should just listen to your instincts." Harry nodded.

"His brother? But I thought Jahan was a vampire? And why does it seem like everyone here will hate me because I'm a mortal student?" Remus explained the rest,

"Cyrus and Jahan both started out as mortal humans around, oh I'd say a few thousand years ago. Jahan was bitten when he was 6 I think, but he kept aging until he hit 25 like all other turned vampires. Cyrus on the other hand went crazy looking for an alternative to becoming a 'bloodsucking parasite' as he put it. Somehow Cyrus was turned into a djinn, and well he's hated humans ever since. I wouldn't remind him he was once human, I think he vaporized one of the third-form students who tried that. Regardless he's the darling of the djinns and has been part of the school since it started. He doesn't like mortal humans, but aside from that he's fair to everyone else. Furball got into it with him a year or so after we graduated, so I'd be doubly cautious if I were you."

"Just great!" Harry snarled, "Another teacher who holds a grudge against me because of something my parents did. Couldn't you guys have made fewer enemies while you were at school?" the Marauders looked confused.

"What do you mean? Has one of the other teachers at Hogwarts been bothering you because of us?" Harry looked at them incredulously.

"Yes! Severus Snape, remember the Slytherin you tormented the heck out of while you were in school? You called him Snivellous and bullied him mercilessly because he was a Slytherin." A look of comprehension dawned on Sirius' face.

"You mean our best friend Talon? We wouldn't have dared bully him, he's terrifying when angry. Not to mention he's really good at the dark arts, he'd give Moldy a run for his money. Also we never discriminated against Slytherins. Prongs memory charmed everyone in Hogwarts to forget the details about us before sixth year and Talon chose to stay. Prongs must have done a very good memory charm for him to think we hated him and pranked him for being a Slytherin. It wasn't like we were all in Gryffindor anyway. Furball was a Slytherin, Wormtail was a Hufflepuff, and Moony was in Ravenclaw. That's probably why the teachers let us get away with anything. We were the only group of friends who ever managed to overcome the house rivalries and I guess they wanted us as an example to show that houses didn't matter. Anyway what did the sorting hat tell you about your house?"

"Well actually it told me I'd be great in Slytherin, but I begged to be placed in Gryffindor because Hagrid and Ron told me Slytherins were evil, and I'd already met Malfoy who was placed in Slytherin," Remus made a face when Harry mentioned Malfoy.

"Lucius Malfoy was the scum of the earth when we were at Hogwarts. I remember Furball turned his hair multicolored for a week the first time he called her the "m" word. Then he went to Nurse Pomfrey, but she turned him away laughing and reminded him that she was a muggleborn. He never insulted Furball again. I told Cissy not to marry him, but it's not like she had a choice. She'd been contracted to marry him since she was born." Harry wasn't exactly surprised, he'd always gotten the impression that Mrs. Malfoy wasn't happy with her husband. Also she'd refused the dark mark several times. He wondered why Remus cared so much. "Well we need to get our wands now, I'll go first." One by one the Marauders got their wands and refused to tell him what they were made of. Sirius explained,

"You're not supposed to tell someone what your wand is made of. It's part of magical etiquette, it's considered rude. Also once you know what the core of someone's wand is you can use it against them. That's why it was such a bad idea for Dumbledore and Riddle to know what your wand core was. Don't make that mistake again." Harry nodded.

"How do you know Dumbledore and Riddle knew what my wand core was?"

"We legilimenced a couple of the bystanders in Diagon Alley. Minnie was shopping for some new books. Now let's go home. It's late and we can go clothes shopping tomorrow. You don't want to be here when the sun goes down." With that they scurried off to the nearest gateway. Here Remus pointed out a star on the Horologium constellation, and off they went.

The gateway spewed them out at the Pettigrew home. Which was an understatement because the house was more of a chateau. They were in the West Wing of the house Peter informed them.

"Libby!" Peter called for a house elf. Immediately the elf appeared, instead of wearing the usual uniform of a dirty dishcloth, she wore a small yellow dress with the Hufflepuff crest on it. She was smiling and ran over to hug him,

"You're finally home master. How can I help you, Master Peter?" Peter hugged her back and explained the situation.

"Yes, I'm back home permanently, and I've brought some friends with me. Libby you've met Remus and Sirius before. That's Harry, James and Lily's son. Harry this is Libby my head house elf. Harry will be heading off to Aether this year."

"Nice to meet you Libby," Harry stuck out a hand to shake, but Libby decided to forgo the handshake and hugged him instead. Peter made note of the way Harry tensed at physical contact and cursed the Dursleys in his head.

"Master James and Mistress Lily's son is always welcome here. I babysat you when you were just a baby. Where are Master James and Mistress Lily? Why haven't I seen any of you for nearly 16 years? Most importantly why haven't you aged at all except for Master Harry?" Libby looked confused and everyone else flinched as if struck. Surprisingly Sirius was the first to respond.

"Libby, James and Lily died in 1981 and we were placed in stasis for 15 years. Harry was placed in the care of Lily's sister's family. Remember Petunia?" Libby looked angry,

"Who placed Master Harry with horseface? Oh dear come you must eat I can already tell you've been underfed. After you have a full meal you can take a shower and then we can make up your room. I'll send Linus for any belongings you've left anywhere. After your room is made up we can tour the house and gardens. Bye Master Peter, Master Sirius, and Master Remus." The bossy house elf dragged Harry off to the kitchens to get what she considered a proper meal amidst snickers from the Marauders. Harry glanced back and pleaded with them to save him, but they just laughed harder. Instead he decided to plot revenge. Once they got to the kitchen Harry saw all the other house elves wearing uniforms similar to Libby's. The only differences were that the male house elves wore pants and the cooks wore puffy chef hats. Libby ordered shrimp scampi, treacle tarts and pumpkin pasties.

After he ate two helpings of all of his food Libby brought him to his quarters. She drew him a bubble bath and even gave him bath toys. Harry had never been so embarrassed in his life, here he was 17 and in a bubble bath with a rubber ducky. He just hoped nobody would ever hear of this. After soaking in the tub for about an hour he dried off to go join Libby in decorating his room. Libby already had colors on his walls. She was trying to decide between sky blue and mint sherbet. "Do you mind if I ask you something?" Libby gave him the go ahead. "Why are you so well-spoken? All the other house elves I've met had bad grammar and wore dirty dishcloth." Libby nodded.

"All house elves are fairly intelligent to start with. Many years ago we were involved in a war against the fae. We lost the war and the fae cursed us that we would have to be bound to a magic users household or we'll go crazy. Depending on how good the bond is, we can learn how to read and write and speak proper Common. The bond's strength depends on how good our relationship with our master is. In this household we all care about Master Peter very much and he cares about us just as much. Therefore I can read and write. Understand?" Harry nodded. "Good now what color do you want your walls to be?" The walls ended up sky blue with clouds painted along the top. His furniture was all dark brown with gold edging. His bedsheets matched the green of his eyes and Linus popped in with his belongings and a solemn face.

"I'm sorry Master, your owl wasn't locked in her cage properly and she flew away. I can't find her anywhere." Harry was upset, but he knew that Hedwig didn't like being caged up while he was in school. He was sure wherever she was she was happier than she had been with him.

"It's okay Linus, it's probably for the best." Linus nodded and popped out silently. Libby decided to take this time to show him the rest of the house. First she showed him to the library which looked to be as big as the library at Hogwarts and full of even more valuable tomes. She then showed him the Quidditch pitch and the broomshed where his Firebolt was currently stored. She showed him the theatre room, how to get to the kitchen, the indoor pool, the dining room, the ball room and they concluded the tour in the gardens outside.

They were just finishing up the tour when Harry heard a snake's voice in the gardens. _Sss Where am I?_ He went over to the other side of the garden where he saw what looked like an injured cobra but felt entirely different.

 _You're at the Pettigrew Chateau. Are you okay?_

 _A Speaker? Come here speaker._ Harry approached cautiously. _I won't hurt you speaker, but can you help me?_

 _What can I do for you?_

 _Reach out with your magic can you sense me?_

 _Yes._

 _Can you cast a parsel spell to heal me?_

 _How?_

 _Just say heal and channel the magic towards me. I would do it myself, but I'm currently incapacitated and I can't transform._ Harry tried channeling magic into her burns and cuts. _Thank you speaker. What should I call you?_

 _Harry is fine, what is your name?_

 _Mer will suit. Thank you for healing me Harry, tell me do you have a familiar?_

 _What's a familiar?_

 _That's a no then. A familiar is an animal you have a bond with and can communicate with. They can help you in honor duels and general battles. I wish to become your familiar, I can sense your magic, you will become a very powerful sorcerer._

 _What's in it for you?_

 _A cunning one eh? As a rule magical animals don't have to become familiars, and I'm certainly no exception. However, we do get a power boost depending on how powerful the wizard we are bound to is. I believe you're powerful enough to allow me to transform into my final state once my magic has fully healed. You'll also get a power boost from me. There is a downside that once bound I can't leave your side without your permission and neither of us can destroy the bond, but I think I'll take my chances._

 _You keep referring to a transformation, what do you mean by that?_

 _I'm not completely sure. As far as I know I'm the last of my kind and I'm supposed to transform into a bigger form, but I don't know when I'll be able to transform or what I'm becoming._

 _Very well then, what do I do to initiate the bond?_

 _Just say you accept me as your familiar._

 _I accept you as my familiar._

 _I accept you as my bonded._ A green glow enveloped him and Mer. She crawled up his arm and hissed in approval. Libby had watched all of this more or less silently.

"Mistress Lily spoke the snake tongue too. You've always spoken it as well. Whenever we needed to understand what you wanted the two of you would hiss back and forth. Master James used to joke he was surrounded by snakes." Harry was stunned his mother spoke Parseltongue? Libby started crying, "Whoever it was that killed Mistress Lily and Master James will you get revenge?"

"I most certainly will Libby. I promise you I will kill him when I'm strong enough." She nodded.

"Good, make it painful. I will tell Linus to set up a snake perch for your familiar and inform the other house elves not to attack her." Libby popped away leaving Harry with Mer. He made his way back into the house to find his uncles. Eventually after wandering around the house for a while and bantering with Mer he found the North Wing. Above there was a sign that read "the Marauder's Den" He knocked on the first door.

"Come in prongslet!" Sirius shouted from the other side. He opened the door. Sirius was sitting criss cross applesauce on his bed with Remus lying on a sun bed reading a book. Peter was in the shower singing Christmas Carols. "So how was today for your 17th birthday?" Harry was surprised he'd thought that in the madness everyone had forgotten his birthday.

"Pretty cool actually. I think this was the best birthday I've ever had." Mer uncoiled herself to look at him.

 _Best birthday you've ever had? You better say this is the best birthday you'll ever have. You got me for a birthday present._ Harry scratched the top of her head fondly.

 _Of course, you're right you're the best birthday present I've ever gotten. Hey you can understand Common?_

 _Hmph._ Remus peered at the snake coiled around Harry's torso.

"Furball had a snake familiar as well, I think it was a baby basilisk. What kind of snake is that? It doesn't have the right markings to be a cobra."

"Well at the moment we don't actually know what she is. Anyway be careful she seems to understand Common. _Mer this is Remus, he's one of my guardians. Sirius, the one on the bed is my second guardian, and my third guardian is in the shower, his name is Peter. Please don't attack them unless you have a good reason._ Uncle Moony, Uncle Padfoot this is Mer."

 _These are your nest mates? I will not harm your nest mates without sufficient reason. Tell them it is a pleasure to meet them._ Harry passed along Mer's message grumbling about not being her personal messenger. Sirius was sitting on his bed still, his eyes were closed and he seemed to be concentrating on something. Remus understood what was puzzling Harry,

"He's looking at his Occlumency walls. Out of all of us he's actually the best at Occlumency and I'm the best at Legilimency. Peter falls somewhere in between. Pretty unbelievable huh? He just acts like a child because he never had a proper childhood. We need to make you a schedule for the next month so that you're prepared for the Aether. What do you want to do first? Weaponry or Animagi studies?" Remus and Harry came up with a schedule for the next month.

7:00 Wake Up

7:00-8:00 Breakfast

8:00-9:00 Weaponry

9:00-10:00 Occlumency/ Legilimency lessons

11:00-12:00 Animagi lessons

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00-2:00 Exercise

Peter finally got out of his shower as they finished up the schedule. "Evening Bambi, I didn't expect you to escape Libby's clutches for another couple of hours or so. Nice familiar she's gorgeous." With that Mer started preening,

 _Finally someone who appreciates my beauty, I like your nest mate._

 _You're vain, as a matter of fact you're vainer than some cats I know._

 _A snake is not capable of being vain. We always have good reason to be proud of our scales. You should be proud as well; you will have scales when you shed your skin._

 _What do you mean "when I shed my skin"?_

 _What is it that you wizards call it? One of your animagus forms will be a snake. I'm not sure what kind yet, but your form will doubtless reflect how much power you have. Regardless I am a snake and I am proud of my scales because I have good reason to be._

 _Yes, you are certainly very beautiful._

Sirius finally looked up, "What'd your familiar say?"

"She thinks my animagus form will be a snake. Well actually she said one of them, is it possible to have more than one animagus?" Remus looked thoughtful.

"Many magicals have second or thirds forms, but humans tend to only have one. What kind of snake did she say?"

"Well she's not sure about that either, she just said that it will reflect my magical power."

Needless to say when Harry took his animagus potion almost two weeks later and found out his primary form was a kitsune they were all surprised.

"I'm a fox? Darn and I thought my form would be kind of impressive." Remus shook his head.

"Your form is a _kitsune_ Harry. Kitsune are magical foxes with several tails made of magic. The strongest have nine tails, but there are rumors that there is one with ten. They originated in Japan and local superstition there says they're Kami's, God's, messengers. The truth is that they were created by the werecats and are completely sentient. They are known for their cunning, and can speak mind to mind with anyone they please. Kitsune are incapable of becoming familiars once they grow their second tail. Maybe we should find one so you can speak with it." Thus the Marauders and the junior Marauder set off to some far away place where they could find a kitsune. After a couple hours of searching Peter realized they were going about this the wrong way.

"Remember that Charlus saved a kitsune from a burning building back in 5th year and he decided to stick around in the garden. Dorea nearly had a conniption when he came home all bloody with a burnt kitsune in his arms. He had seven tails, which was the only reason he didn't become Charlus' familiar. Do you suppose he's still at Potter manor?" Then they rushed off to find Harry's grandfather's kitsune.

As it turned out the kitsune had stayed at Potter manor, he had an eighth tail now, and he was hidden in the back gardens.

:: What do you require of me child? :: Harry started and then found the kitsune in his alcove. He approached slowly.

"My animagus form is a kitsune. I was wondering if you could help me learn the transformation."

:: You are Charlus' grandson, Harry? My name is Inari the Sly. I will help you understand your soul Harry. :: Harry sat down next to Inari and Inari explained to him what it meant to be a kitsune. :: Kitsune aren't very common. We were created by the werecats to become another species of weres, but there was some kind of mistake. In the end the experiments were buried in the ground and the werecats forgot. A tree sprouted from the ground were the experiments were buried and a being of pure magic was born. It took the shape of a fox as that was the first creature it came across. After a hundred years it grew a second tail, and the tree produced another kitsune to be guided by the first. Every hundred years we gain another tail and the tree produces another kitsune. You will have six tails when you manage your transformation. As you hit your magical maturation your power will grow, in two years you'll grow another tail. You'll have nine tails six years from now. :: Harry spent the rest of the day learning everything there was to know about kitsune. Remus, Sirius, and Peter changed into their second forms and ran around in the garden. Sirius had confundused Moony into chasing his tail. Harry realized that Sirius wasn't a grim now. He was an adorable big black puppy yipping and running back and forth chasing Peter through a rose bush. Harry remembered that this Sirius had never been to Azkaban and still acted like a child, his soul animal was still quite young. He turned his attention back to Inari,

"I'm ready to try the transformation." Inari nodded at him. Harry focused on what he'd been told and felt himself shrinking down into a white green-eyed fox a little smaller than Sirius' form with six bushy tails. He felt unsteady for a minute, but once he got over it he ran circles around Inari yipping at him.

:: Good job Harry! You'll find that you can communicate mind to mind with anyone while in your kitsune form. Let's try some exercises before you shift back into your human skin. :: Inari got up towering over Harry. They ran to opposite sides of the garden.

:: Can you hear me?::

:: Loud and clear, now try speaking to your guardians. :: Harry focused on sending a message to Peter.

::Hey can you hear me?:: Peter ran out from the hole he'd been hiding in and shifted back to a human.

"Sure can, is that your special power from being a kitsune? Can you do that in human form too?"

:: I don't know, want me to try? :: Peter nodded while conjuring a leash and attaching it to Sirius. By now Moony had stopped chasing his tail and was watching with interest. Harry focused on turning back to a human. Slower than he would've liked he returned to his original form. :: Can you hear me now?:: Peter nodded, but Moony spoke first.

"Cub you should probably look at your hair." Harry raced over to the nearest pond and peered at his hair, which was now the same snow white as his kitsune form. He tried a Finite Incantatem just to find it wasn't working.

"Uncle Padfoot this isn't funny!" Sirius shook his head.

"That wasn't me." Mer coiled around him smelling his hair.

 _It isn't a charm, the scent hasn't changed. As far as scent goes this could be your natural color. Your hair has just chosen a new color._

 _Why did it choose a new color?_

 _Perhaps this is your defining mark as an animagus._

"Mer thinks my hair is my mark as an animagus." Peter nodded.

"That would make sense. The first time we transformed we gained our animal ears. You won't be able to change your hair color for a few months and yes that does include muggle hair dyes. Look at the bright side you certainly don't look like Harry Potter anymore." One of the traditions at Aether was to choose a new name, it could be just your first name, or you could change your entire name. For his part Harry was partial to the name Dante Jameson, and Peter was right, Harry's scar had completely faded, all the baby fat had melted of his face, he had healed up his eyesight, and his hair was white, he didn't look like Harry Potter anymore. Still, why was his hair white?

:: What seems to be the problem child?::

:: My hair used to be black, and now it's white.::

:: Is that all? Every kitsune has white hair, even the few that were wizards with kitsune souls. When you reach your final maturation your hair will have gold streaks as well. Not that a kitsune souled human has ever reached their final transformation in my 714 years.::

:: Oh thank you for explaining.:: Inari shook his fur out and returned to his spot under a tree effectively dismissing the humans.

"Inari said that every kitsune has white hair, no matter which form is the natural one. Also that if I'm still alive in 6 years I'll have nine tails." Privately harry wasn't sure he'd live six more years, and Inari's words just cemented that belief. At the same time he knew he'd go down fighting and he'd learn everything he could to kill Riddle.

"Well your hair hasn't actually changed, just turned white. You still look a little like Prongs and Lily, but white suits you prongslet." Sirius had transformed back to a human, but Peter had kept the pink leash with rhinestones stuck around his neck. "Wormtail can you please let go of the leash?" Peter shook his head and led Sirius back to the gateway. "Prongslet, Moony help me!" The two shook their heads.

"Don't worry Pads this is just part 1 of my revenge for changing _my_ hair color." Remus and Harry followed at a distance smiling at Sirius clawing at the floor trying to get away from Peter. Harry considered not helping to be his revenge for the harsh Weaponry lessons Sirius had inflicted on him so far.

First Sirius had Harry learn how to heal cuts which really wouldn't have been so bad if his method of teaching harry to heal cuts was to actually kick his butt with a sword and cut him open in a bunch of different places. He'd run off to the library to find a charm to heal himself. He decided he'd take a proper healing course once he started at Aether. Sirius' next lessons had also just been him beating the crap out of Harry. Although to be fair Harry had improved tremendously and at least Sirius didn't taunt him while they fought. He also had to admit that Sirius was a good swordsman. He much preferred learning Occlumency with him though. Together they came up with strange ways to keep intruders out of their heads. Harry's favorite is a sphinx with insanely hard riddles wired to kill the intruder even if they answered the riddle correctly. Padfoot's favorite is a cute little kitty that rubs up against the intruder and then turns into a giant nundu who immediately neutralizes the intruder. Exercises with Peter were almost as bad as Weaponry with Sirius with the only difference being that Peter actually taught him the healing spells to patch himself up.

He caught up with the rest smirking about a prank he'd planned as retaliation for his first Weaponry class.

"Well now that you've managed to shift into your form there's really no need for you to do your meditation exercises. We'll use that hour as just time to spend in our animagus forms."

"Uncle Moony why can you shift into an actual wolf? I thought werewolves could only change on the full moon."

"No, that's just a myth Greyback likes to take advantage of. Werewolves can shift into wolves or half wolves whenever they like and they always have complete control of their minds. The full moon just makes us stronger, and I've heard of werewolf cults that worship the moon. Another special trick is that we can phase a part of our body. For example we can grow out claws, or teeth for a fight. Our other special abilities include faster healing, more stamina, and we're faster than mortal humans. Overall we're on par with vampires, but with the use of cruor sorcery a human can get up to our level."

"What's cruor sorcery?"

"Ask Padfoot when he's done being humiliated by Wormtail. Cruor sorcery is his specialty, he even has a mastery in it."

"What's your specialty?" Remus grinned ferally.

"I'm glad you asked. Mind magic's are my specialty, I can trap someone inside their mind without a hope of ever getting back out leaving them in a mindscape designed to drive them insane and back again. If they ever do manage to escape they'll have serious mental trauma impossible to overcome. The best part is that while trapped in their minds they can feel pain caused to them by their mindscape. Personally I think ripping out a spine and shoving it down Abraxas' throat was a rather nice touch. After that I broke every bone in his body and summoned his kidney from inside his body. I even left him a message in his blood next to him for when he woke up." Harry remembered that Moony was rather bloodthirsty when sufficiently riled. He made a note to never seriously anger Moony, and followed after him.

"What'd he do?"

"Abraxas Malfoy paid Greyback to bite me and kill my mother when I was 6. Apparently he had some sort of grudge against my father. I only found out when his son taunted me about it in 5th year. I glanced over his mind and just barely refrained from killing him. He was still in St. Mungo's last I checked." Harry nodded he'd heard that Moony had lost his mother when he younger and lost his father while still at Hogwarts, but he'd thought Greyback's attack was random.

"What's Uncle Wormtail's specialty?"

"Wormtail has this weird weather thing. When he was younger and had no control his emotions would trigger some serious storms at Hogwarts. Even now if he gets angry enough he'll start a hurricane out of nowhere. His specialty is Runes though, he became an apprentice to Futhark. I'm not sure, but I think he's also completed his mastery. We all did under different masters we learned of through our contacts at Aether. Your mum had an elemental mastery, and your dad had a mastery in necromancy. Your mum was actually a shaman and we suspect that's why she was perfectly in tune with her elements. She had control of water and earth in case you were wondering." Harry nodded wordlessly.

"I thought necromancy was dark magic?"

"It is, your parents weren't perfectly light you know. They were whatever works kind of people. We didn't forgive easily, and Wormtail told us how the marking process used to work. For it to set properly you had to bathe in the blood of an innocent muggle family and enjoy it, and even after that if you felt the slightest bit of remorse the mark faded away. We killed every death eater we could. We've all killed, actually we had killed before that. It's nearly impossible to get through Aether without killing someone, and we weren't exceptions." Remus watched Harry carefully. If he couldn't accept this he wouldn't be able to go to Aether, and he might not be able to kill Voldemort.

"I understand. Many of the death eaters escaped justice claiming they'd been imperiused. The rest stayed in Azkaban, and when Tom came back to power he had a ready army in Azkaban insane enough to do anything he asked. The death eaters should've been kissed, not pardoned." Moony nodded solemnly.

The rest of the month flew by with occasional interruptions to routine such as the time Harry made Sirius' food taste like dog food for a day and the time Sirius charmed Harry's pants to soak through and make him look like he'd peed himself and stick to his skin for two. Harry couldn't remember ever having as much fun any summer before, and the day before he left for Aether he decided to pay the Dursleys a visit. Dudley opened the door,

"Hey Harry! I like the hair, anyway can I talk to you for a minute?" Harry nodded and took in Dudley's appearance. He'd lost weight, an unhealthy amount of weight. He also had a black eye and bruises on his arms that looked an awful lot like handprints. "I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I guess that without you around Dad decided I was a better target. He hits Mum now too. We're moving out today while he's at work. Now that it's happening to me, well I can't excuse the way I treated you. All I can say is that I was raised to hate you, and even that isn't a good excuse. But even though I treated you like crap you still saved me from those damntors. I'm glad you found somewhere else to live." Harry nodded.

"In different circumstances maybe we could've been friends, but for now all I can say is that if I ever see you or your mum again I probably won't restrain myself from killing both of you. Good luck Dudley!" With that Harry made his way past Dudley into the house. He'd wait here for Vernon to come home from work. He only had to wait a couple of hours, he was twirling his wand in his hand when Vernon came home. He'd already thrown up the most powerful privacy wards he knew.

"Freak! I thought you had learned what was best for you and run off! You're even more freakish now!" Vernon made as if to hit him, but Harry just pushed him back with wandless magic. "You can't use magic they'll expel you from that freak school you go to!"

"Not quite _Uncle Vernon_ , they'd expel me for using magic while under 17. As of last month I am officially 17, or did you forget?" Harry said putting as much venom as he could into his voice.

"Dumbledore said you would never hurt us!"

"Dumbledore is dead in case you didn't know, but he's never had any control over me anyway. Anyway I have someone who wants to meet you. She's heard many stories about you." With that Mer slunk down to the floor and drew up to her 7 feet in height watching Vernon. "Uncle Vernon meet Mer, she's a magical snake and she's my familiar."

"This isn't real! This isn't real! This isn't real!" Harry had learned when he was 6 years old that Vernon had ophidiophobia, he was afraid of snakes. Or perhaps terrified would be the most appropriate word.

"Mer has a special kind of poison. It's a paralytic that will keep you awake through all the pain we'll put you through and then keep you awake once we're done with the final phase of our plans for today." Mer bit Vernon and Harry approached a whimpering Vernon. "Where to start where to start hmm? Oh I know you broke both of my legs 'by accident' when I was ten." Harry flicked his wand at said bones and heard the audible crack they made. "You know for all you complained I was a freak you were an even bigger one. Honestly what _normal person_ locks up a child in a cupboard?" Vernon finally got angry.

"You're calling me a freak? You're a good for nothing wand-waving lunatic. What normal person tortures a family member?" Harry smirked.

"Then I suppose it's a good thing I never made a claim to normalcy." With that Harry proceeded to break Vernon's bones and tear out chunks of skin. At one point he even electrocuted him and charred his privates. By the time he was done Vernon was unrecognizable and still conscious. He was trying to whimper, but Harry had already torn out his voice box. There was no outward sign that he was still alive, and Harry had dulled the noise of his heart beat so that no one could hear it. "Now for your final punishment, they should find you tomorrow. I know that you've put it in your will that you want to be buried, and you will be. You'll be buried alive and die in maybe 10 years. Maybe it'll take longer, potions was never my forte. Drink this." Harry tipped Vernon's head back and poured the potion down his throat. "Goodbye Uncle." With a cheery wave Harry disapparated to Diagon Alley to find the gateway which was now next to the Leaky Cauldron. He made his way home whistling a jaunty tune and cleaning off the knives he'd used to rip into Vernon. He felt satisfied now that he'd tied up that loose end. He ported to Pettigrew House wondering if that counted as the first life he'd taken, after all Vernon was still alive and would stay alive for 10 more years.

"What'd you do to him prongslet?" Sirius was bouncing up and down in anticipation. The other Marauders were seated on a plush couch and Harry sat down next to him.

"Whoa the smell of blood is overpowering my nose!" Harry noted that using Moony's werewolf senses against him could make for an effective prank. He decided to work on that later and told them in gory detail exactly what he'd done for revenge. Peter whistled in appreciation.

"Damn Harry remind me to never piss you off. That is terrifying." Sirius was covering his privates as Harry retold what he'd done to Vernon's rather unimpressive equipment,

"I guess you really are ready for Aether. Have you already packed everything?"

"Have you met Libby?" Harry countered. "She insisted that she would pack everything for me and apparently the trunk I chose has a direct connection to the bank and can't be opened by anyone besides me. Can you tell me what the family motto's translation is?" Sirius raised his hand,

"Pick me pick me! Okay the motto is Praesis ut Prosis ne ut Imperes and comes from Latin. It means 'Lead in order to serve not in order to rule'. Originally it was Merlin's motto and as I'm sure you've heard by now, you are the last direct descendant of Merlin. Alden Potter married Merlin's only daughter over a thousand years ago. All the other offshoots have mostly died out though." Harry decided he liked the motto and would keep it as his personal motto.

"How am I getting to Aether?" Peter answered first.

"You have to go to the pick up point, from there the Headmistress will take you to the school. Don't ask me how she does it, all I know is that she can hop between realities fairly easily. Some of the elder djinns can do it, but I've never heard of anyone besides them who could do it. Anyway we're meeting her by the gateway we used to get to Infinitium the first time. That's called Wizard's Way, she already knows you're coming."

"What's her name and what is she?"

"Her name is Morgana Le Fay, and she's human. Or at least she used to be, now she's a being of pure magic, similar to a kitsune. She came to the school a thousand years ago after Merlin defeated her to lick her wounds. Since then she's become stronger than most magicals. Don't worry she won't hate you for being a Potter, I don't think she even knows the Potter's are Merlin's descendants. Regardless, Headmistress Le Fay is the only reason humans can still apply to Aether. She's pretty strict, but she also has a wicked sense of humor. You'll like her, trust me." Harry nodded and prepared for tomorrow.

 **Is this a cliff hanger? I'm going to sleep right now so I suppose I don't really care but I guess I'm sorry anyway. Did you like the kitsune white hair thing? What about Morgana Le fay? And what did you think about what I did to the Dursleys? After turning Petunia and Dudley into Vernon's victims I couldn't torture them, but I think I did a pretty good job with Vernon. I'm sorry if this wasn't up to par but I've never actually written a torture scene. Hopefully by the end of the fic I'll be better at it. So... that's it I guess. REVIEW PLEASE!**


	4. Arrivals

**Disclaimer: Do I really have to do this every chapter? Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, not me.**

 **A/N: Originally Harry was going to tell his new friends who he was this chapter, but I thought it was too soon.**

The morning Harry was leaving for Aether was a little chaotic. To start with Libby had forced him into a bath and then promptly burst into tears on him. After calming down the sobbing house elf he couldn't find Mer. He found her strolling the halls 20 minutes later looking for a rat and she refused to leave the halls until she had one to eat. So he joined her on the hunt until he got fed up and called for a house elf to get them a rat for her to eat. Lastly on his way down to breakfast he was nearly caught in five prank traps and was actually caught in one that gave him a large boil n his left arm that he had to burst and heal.

"Uncle Paddy those pranks were quite juvenile and the color changing charm wouldn't have worked anyway."

"The color changing charm wasn't me as for the rest, well I'm going to miss you prongslet."

"So your way of telling me you're going to miss me while I'm away at Aether is to try to pull every prank you possibly can on me?"

"Er… yes?"

"You're unbelievable!" Sirius just grinned and returned to his breakfast. Harry noticed a piece of paper by his plate. "Hey what's this?" Remus took a look at it.

"That's a list of all the classes you can take this year. Why don't you pick whatever sounds interesting and ask us what it's about? You're supposed to choose 10 classes and then after the first month of classes drop the two you feel most unsuited for."

"Alright, so I suppose I'll choose Elemental class, after all that wandmaker did even write out a note. What's Cruor Sorcery?" Sirius perked up immediately.

"That's my specialty, basically cruor sorcery is bloodmagic. Bloodmagic is as versatile as magic gets; it is both defensive and offensive. You can carve runes into your body to correct your eyesight, create a shield of blood, or charge your blood with electricity. You can also turn your blood into blood whips and bullets and use it as another set of limbs. Do be wary of blood loss though, the mortality rate of the cruor sorcery classes is the highest in the school." Harry checked that one on his list.

"What about runes class? I didn't take runes while I was at Hogwarts, will that be a problem?" Peter replied,

"Nope, I didn't take runes at Hogwarts either and I became the apprentice of the runes teacher at Aether. For runes class you'll need a special stylus and some kind of clay to write on at first. You've heard the phrase 'words have power' right? I think that's the best description of runes I can come up with. Every rune has a meaning assigned to it, and combinations of runes can be used to get a certain effect. If you take Cruor Sorcery you have to take Runes, it's one of Professor Alexei's requirements." Harry checked that one on his list as well.

"Wandless magic class?" Remus shook his head.

"By the time you go to Aether you're expected to know wandless magic. Taking that class is the equivalent of taking a remedial class at Hogwarts. You won't learn anything useful, and you'll be seen as weak by the other students." Harry didn't check that one off.

"Weaponry? And Mind Magics?" Padfoot nodded.

"Weaponry class will be harder than what you've done with me. You'll need that one in case you're ever challenged to an honor duel, which happens much more often than you would think." Harry checked off Weaponry. Moony explained mind magics,

"You're going to learn different techniques to occlude your mind properly. Also they have the students practice against each other, you'll find every single chink in your Occlumency and reinforce it, but you can also do that another year. You are required to take it though, unless you're a prodigy, which you might actually be." Harry decided to hold off on Mind Magics.

"What other classes are required?" Peter answered,

"Healing isn't strictly required, but you don't want to go to the Healer for any injuries if possible. She requires a payment; I know she asked a vampire for his fangs and a changeling for her talons. Unless you're on the brink of death or have something to trade for her services don't ever go to her for help." Harry checked that class off with a shudder.

"What about Transmutation? What is that?" Padfoot raised his hand.

"Transmutation is similar to transfiguration I guess you could say. Except you can't use a wand for transmutation. You can already do some minor transmutation, conjuring objects is considered transmutation. By the end of that class you should be able to do permanent conjurations." Harry checked that off.

"Any recommendations?" Remus thought for a minute,

"Well given the situation with Moldy Voldy you have to take Animus Sorcery. Animus Sorcery is soul magic maybe that can help you with the horcruxes, and maybe you should try Divination." Harry made a face at that. "Divination at Aether is different, we have a proper teacher who is actually a seer and can hone the seer in anyone with a talent. If you don't have the talent she'll tell you on your first day." Harry shrugged and checked off both classes

"How about Necromancy and Void magic?" Peter nodded,

"Necromancy revolves around death magic which should include inferi. You will either have a ton of death magic from that killing curse or it will have burnt through it all. As for void magic, well I wouldn't exactly suggest it. You'll either have an aptitude for it, or you'll leave after the first class, similar to Divination. But, void magic is also pretty much unstoppable. If you can master it that's be a nice ace up your sleeve." After a bit of hesitation he checked both off. Moony smiled,

"Now that you've chosen your class list have you decided on your new name?" Harry shook his head.

"I'm set on my first name as Dante, but I can't think of a last name that will go well with it. I don't want to use Potter in case someone figures out who I am, and Dante Jameson sounds, cacophonous." Sirius sat back,

"Dante huh? I can see it, hey why don't you use Black. Everyone knows the Black line ended with me, no one will link you to Harry Potter. You can say that you're a distant relative and inherited the Black estate through your paternal grandmother. Which actually is the truth, and it will silence any questions if you accidentally show how well off you are."

"You don't mind? And what do you mean it isn't far off?" Mer finally came out of hiding.

 _You and that nest mate share blood. I can smell it._

 _Thanks Mer, where've you been?_

 _Shedding._ Harry took a look at her she looked glossier. Her skin was a shimmery seafoam color with specks of white.

"I mean that your father's mother was a Black, Dorea Black. She was my aunt actually, James and I were first cousins not that anyone ever really acknowledged it. Apparently mother tried to get her disinherited from the family when she married Charlus, but grandfather wouldn't hear of it, and when she nagged him he just snapped at her that she wasn't a real Black anyway. Wish I could've seen it." Padfoot sighed dreamily. "Father said the harpy actually shut up."

"Alright then, Dante Black it is. Thank you Uncle Padfoot." Peter took a look at the clock on the mantelpiece.

"It's time for you to go Dante. You have to be in front of Archimedes' Bookshop at 10 AM. It's already 9:36 and the gateway has shifted location." Harry bid his guardians adieu and pulled his trunk down to the gateway. He checked to make sure he had Mer and ported away.

 _I do not like this form of transportation._

 _What do you mean? You can feel it?_

 _Of course I can feel it. Excuse me I have to barf._ Harry twisted his body just barely fast enough to avoid the snake vomit.

 _You couldn't have given me more warning?_

 _I gave you as much warning as I could, it's not my fault you don't have quick enough reflexes. Now shut up unless you want everyone to know you can speak the snake tongue._ Harry nodded. He'd explained to Mer that he didn't want people to know he was a parseltongue if he could help it. She couldn't understand why he wanted to hide his gift, but had agreed to his unreasonable (in her opinion) request. He made his way down Wizard's Way looking for Archimedes'. After 10 minutes he found it and decided to make himself comfortable on one of the benches outside.

"Scootch over mortal." Harry opened an eye to look at the vampire that had approached him, and internally smirked.

"Only if you say please." The vampire snarled at him.

"You are below me mortal. I don't have to say please. Get up!" Harry just a waved a hand and the vampire went flying. Another vampire approached Harry and Harry groaned. One vampire he could handle, but two?

"Good job!" Harry stared at the vampire incredulously. "Can I sit down please? I'll explain about him." Harry wordlessly shifted over so that the new vampire could sit down. Mer looked up to see what the fuss, was hissed at the newcomer, and coiled around Harry again. Raven waved at her and then sat down, "His name is Theodore Lebeau and he's from one of the minor noble families. He thinks he's all that, but amongst the vampires he's considered a pathetic excuse for a sorcerer. He's one of the anti-mortal types as you can see, and not particularly intelligent. You're going to Aether right?" Harry nodded.

"Yup, it's nice to meet you, I'm Dante Black." The vampire smiled and stuck out a hand.

"Are we going by our new names? My name's Raven Chevalier. Hey how'd you get your hair that color?" Dante groaned.

"I don't know. I did my animagus transformation and then it just got stuck this color. I still suspect it was a prank my godfather thought up, but everywhere I've looked for information on it suggests that it's a normal." Raven nodded.

"That means it's probably your animagus mark, it's pretty cool looking if it's any consolation. I met someone whose animagus transformation left them with gills. He looks ridiculous." Harry smiled. "Are you nervous about attending Aether?"

"I'm not so worried about Aether per se, I'm more worried about the mortality rate for mortal humans." Raven looked confused for a minute.

"Oh that's right, the mortality rate for you guys is 75% isn't it? The vampire mortality rate fluctuates constantly, at the moment it looks like we'll have a mortality rate of 40%." Harry was shocked.

"How many vampires are there at Aether?" Raven stared at him.

"Your parents didn't tell you? There's about 125 vampires, 100 weres, 100 djinns, 50 fae, 50 goblins, 25 elves, 25 centaurs or satyrs, and the rest is comprised of mortals, gnomes, and dwarves." Hearing the statistics Dante wondered at the small population of gnomes and dwarves.

"Why are there so few gnomes and dwarves?" Raven looked at him like he was trying to solve a riddle.

"Aha! You're originally from Earth reality aren't you?" Dante nodded. "Well why didn't you say so? The dwarves live deep in the mountains of Infinitium reality, they have special schools there for their magics. They allow the best 10-15 to come here to become warriors. As the dwarves have ridiculously long life spans they only need a few each year. Also out of those 10-15 only a few die here. As for the gnomes, their numbers were decimated by their last civil war. Not that their numbers are ever high to start with. Aside from that gnomes aren't very interested in Aether, they almost never leave their city which is a separate reality. The gnomes you'll meet here are abnormal by their standards, and they probably won't return to Haraxilik City anyway." Dante nodded. "So where did you go to school before?" Dante figured there wouldn't be any trouble telling him considering many students had dropped out of Hogwarts this year.

"I went to Hogwarts actually. Trust me when I say it wasn't fun. There were new adventures every year I feel bad for Potter he was always in some kind of trouble." Raven nodded.

"I'm from Earth reality too. Most of the vampires in Earth reality are centered around France you know. I was what you would call homeschooled. My mother took care of the academic side of things, my father taught me how to fight, and my elder sister took care of anything they missed. What about your parents? What did they think about you coming to Aether?" Dante studied the ground.

"My parents died when I was pretty young so I grew up with my muggle aunt and her family. My godfather and other guardians decided to take over this year, apparently my parents went to Aether and they wanted me to attend as well." Raven decided that pity would only make the white-haired boy angry so he changed the topic,

"What classes are you taking?"

"I chose Cruor Sorcery, Animus Sorcery, Healing, Necromancy, Divination, Void Magic, Transmutation, Elemental, Runes, and Weaponry, how about you?"

"Replace Divination with a specialized vampire class, and Void Magic for a hand-to-hand combat class and you have my schedule. You know that the Elemental professor hates humans right? And that Void Magic is taught by the Headmistress?"

"Actually I didn't know that Void Magic was taught by the Headmistress, but I have a note for Professor Cyrus from Jahan. It has to do with my wand, but I don't know what that's about."

"May I see your wand and the note?" Dante startled at the voice coming from right behind him. He turned around to see the headmistress standing behind him.

"Headmistress! Of course." He pulled out his wand and the note and handed both over to her. She was tall, with black hair cascading down her back and a pair of unearthly blue eyes. She studied the wand carefully, and then read the note.

"I see, Cyrus will have a conniption. You'll have a unique connection with lightning. Oh this will be a fun year, lightning is Cy's specialty, he'll hate this. You know he actually respects your mother for the tongue-lashing she gave him almost 20 years ago right? I'd suggest giving him the note as soon as you arrive. Good luck Mr. Black!" She giggled and walked out into the middle of the street. He looked at Raven who just shrugged.

"She's been alive for hundreds of years, I guess she isn't quite all there anymore. Most vampires and djinns over a thousand aren't." Dante shifted his focus to the Headmistress who was gathering all the students.

"All first-year students heading to Aether gather in the circle! Everyone else get out!" As she finished speaking a large glowing white circle appeared in the street. It looked as if it could fit 1,000 easily. Aether students including Dante and Raven rushed into the circle and non-Aether students ran out of the circle. She waited for a full minute and then waved her wand in the air. Mer slithered out from his clothes.

 _Tell me this will be better than using the gateway._ Harry shrugged sympathetically, and then when he knew Raven wasn't paying attention responded.

 _Don't worry you'll never have to go through this again._

 _Somehow I don't believe you._ Harry kept quiet because he felt the circle start to vibrate. It felt like he was on a muggle rollercoaster. Information about the spell started coming to him. It was a form of Void Magic and like most void magic it was impossible to prevent someone from using it to get out or into a place. The power requirements were pretty high, but if he adjusted the spell to a smaller radius and learned some control he should be able to perform the spell if he showed any aptitude for Void magic. He sent a silent apology to Mer, he was definitely going to try this again. Eventually the ground stopped shaking and they were inside Aether's courtyard.

Aether was a castle like Hogwarts, but it was 3 or 4 times larger and structured entirely differently. On the outskirts was a large courtyard with a desert, mountains, a small jungle, and a couple of lakes. The castle itself looked like the Sultan's Palace from Aladdin, but it was bigger and had more towers. In each spire a different kind of magic was taught. Underneath each spire were 20 suites for the students. To get from class to class students had to walk down the staircase, run across to their next class, and race up that staircase hoping they weren't late. Luckily students never ended up in the wrong spire because they were color-coded. For example Necromancy's spire is black, Cruor Sorcery's spire is blood red, and Animus Sorcery's spire is white.

"Here we are students. As you know half of you will die before you graduate, in order to prevent this I recommend making as many allies as you can. Also Alexei requests that I mention if you fear death to avoid his classroom. At least half of the deaths at Aether are caused by Cruor Sorcery. Now then in front of you is a paper with your suite number and which spire you will reside in for the rest of your stay at Aether. Each suite is currently completely empty. Have fun setting up your homes and warding them. Class will start in three days you will find your class schedule next to you when you wake up. Breakfast is served in the courtyards at 7:00, be there or you won't eat. Off you go I'll see the Void Magic students first period Monday morning, don't be late. Good luck getting to your rooms." She popped off to her quarters presumably.

"Which spire are you in Dante?"

"I'm under Cruor Sorcery, how about you?"

"I'm under Cruor as well, which floor?"

"I'm on number 12, you?"

"Right below you, cool. Now let's get started, did she say anything against groups? Or using our familiars?" Dante shook his head. Raven grinned and opened his trunk. Out came a miniature black unicorn that grew to about his waist. "Now let me introduce you to my familiar, his name is Noir. He's just a filly right now, but eventually he'll be big enough for me to ride him. I saw your familiar briefly earlier, would you mind introducing it?"

"Not at all. Let's see if she'll wake up." Dante pulled Mer out of his clothing. "Her name is Mer, and she hates most forms of magical travel, they make her sick."

 _That's not true. I don't have a problem with that thing your Headmistress does. That was fun. Can we do it again?_ "Except for void travel apparently." Raven stared at Mer.

"She's certainly not a snake I've ever seen before."

 _Of course you haven't seen my kind before, I'm one of a kind you filthy leech. To imply otherwise is an insult to all snakes kutte ki jat._ Mer continued to hiss profanities at raven while Dante laughed at her.

"I'm sorry if I insulted you. You are a very beautiful and unique snake. Your scales are one of a kind." Mer stopped insulting him.

 _Much better. You are allowed to pet me now if you'd like._ Dante just kept laughing.

"What's she saying?" Dante froze, had he given himself away?

"How do you know I can understand her?" Raven shrugged.

"You're laughing, presumably at what she's saying. I've heard of strong familiar bonds where the familiar can communicate with their bonded telepathically. I'd assume she's thinking about what she's saying." Dante was relieved he wanted to keep this a secret for a little while longer, "So what'd she say?"

"She'll allow you to pet her now, but before that she was calling you every insulting name under the sun. Actually I think some of those insults were in Indian." Dante looked at Mer speculatively. "Why can you speak Indian?"

 _Not telling._ Dante sighed and let Raven pet Mer for a little while.

"Hey let's group up with a couple other people, I see some friends over there." Dante followed after Raven and Noir slowly not wanting to meet any more vampires. He was pleasantly surprised that Raven's friends weren't all vampires. "Dmitri Belkov meet Dante Black. Dmitri is a djinn, and Dante is a human." The two shook hands.

"Hey leech, how are you? What name did you end up choosing?" The orange-skinned djinn asked his friend. At first Dante was sure the vampire would attack the djinn for insulting him, but they just hugged and Raven answered him.

"Raven Chevalier, at your service." Dmitri nodded and looked over at Dante,

"Nice ta meetcha mortal. How good do you think your chances are of surviving Aether?" Dante smirked,

"Seeing as both of my parents graduated from here, I'd say my chances are pretty good." Dmitri looked at Dante green eyes wide in shock.

"You're a double legacy?" He whistled, "That's rare, especially amongst the humans, you'll be like the second human double legacy since the founding." Dante hadn't realized just how rare a legacy was here at Aether. He just hoped nobody would piece together who he was using that information. Raven waved his hand impatiently.

"Yes Dmitri we know, now Dante meet-" Dante looked at the girl Raven was pointing at and realized she looked familiar.

"Daisy?" The purple-haired girl looked up to meet Dante's eyes smiling.

"Fancy seeing you here Green Eyes." He hugged her. "Where've you been? I went by your house the other day and they said they were investigating your uncle's murder. It was a pretty gruesome sight." Dante shrugged.

"My work of course, did you like it?" She laughed.

"You don't ever change do ya Green Eyes? I did like it actually. He deserved worse after everything he did to you, but why'd you spare your aunt and cousin?" Dante shook his head.

"After I left he started abusing them in my place. Besides Dudley never learned that what he was doing was wrong until now. In a way he's worse off than I am, I'm capable of being a human being. He's always been spoiled rotten and he's always been able to bully the other kids into doing his work. Anyway what's your name here?" she smiled sheepishly,

"Actually I wanted to choose Daisy, that was always my favorite nickname, but one of the other fae had already chosen it. I'm going by Willow." Raven looked confused,

"Mind cluing the rest of us on what's going on here?" Willow shrugged and pointed at Harry to go first.

"When I was like 3 or something Daisy's parents moved next door to me. They offered to babysit me and my aunt and uncle sent me over nearly every day. Which I thought was weird because the Dursleys were terrified of anyone they considered abnormal and Daisy's parents were certainly abnormal looking. Daisy had purple hair and gold eyes, as did her mum and her dad. But I decided to ignore it, Daisy and I grew up together, she's the closest thing I've ever had to a sister. Then when I was 10 the family just disappeared. No one remembered meeting them, or that the house had ever been occupied. The Dursleys thought I was just being a 'freaky'. Eventually I just wrote it off as a fantasy." Dante looked at Willow questioningly.

"Sorry about that Green Eyes, we're Mnemosyne fae. We had to move back to Fiore for the conclave. Mom and Dad wiped the minds of every muggle who'd seen us. I begged them not to wipe your mind, we knew you were a wizard the first time you saw through our glamour. That's why they asked to babysit you so often. That and they didn't want you home as much so your aunt and uncle couldn't abuse you." Raven smiled in a rather unfriendly way,

"You mentioned you did something to your uncle earlier, what'd you do to him?" Dante rubbed his hands together,

"Well first Mer injected him with a special venom she has that keeps the victim paralyzed and awake while I broke all his bones, tore out chunks of his flesh, charred his genitals, and ripped out his voicebox. Then I gave him a potion that will keep him aware and alive for the next ten years and dulled his heartbeat. He's currently buried alive. I consider the being buried alive payback for him beating me bloody and then shoving me in the cupboard countless times," The others laughed and one of the others he hadn't been introduced yet shook his hand.

"I'm going to like you, I can already tell. My name's Manolo Rodriguez, and I'm a werecat. Call me Manny. It's nice to meet you Dante Black." Dante smiled and shook his hand. Manny was obviously Latino. He had curly brown hair, chocolaty brown eyes, a nice tan, and a slight accent. The last two students introduced themselves.

"My name's Remy Lebeau, and I'm a vampire as you can see. Raven informed me that you met my brother, I'm sorry for your misfortune," He shrugged and held his hand out to Dante and they shook hands as well. Remy was tall, paper white, with blue black hair and crimson eyes. Dante turned to the last person.

"Hi Dante! My name's Aurora and I'm a wood elf. It's nice to meet you." Aurora was short with the typical golden hair and pointed elf ears. Her eyes were forest green and seemed to actually sparkle. Dante watched the bouncing wood elf before offering a hand, which the elf ignored in favor of a hug. As usual he tensed slightly at first, but ended up hugging her back. Once he disentangled himself from the bouncy elf he addressed the group,

"Shall we head off? I'm getting tired of just standing here. Where is the entrance to the school anyway?" As he asked his question the djinn closed his eyes and pointed left.

"The gates close around the school and the only opening is over by the mountains. Can anyone feel for anti-apparation wards?" Dante nodded, his mage sight allowed him to see every kind of magic,

"There's anti-apparation wards, weather wards, anti-house elf wards, and anti-portkey wards. How we'd get a portkey to the entrance I don't know, but let's get going. It looks like a one-day trek to the mountains, but I'm sure there's plenty of monsters out here ready to kill us." They all shrunk their trunks and headed off towards the mountains.

The first obstacle they encountered was a wide stream with flesh eating fish. Manny sat down by the stream and caught a few to roast over the fire later, while the others found a way across. Dante came up with a solution,

"How about I electrocute the fish?" The others moved away from the water and allowed him to enact his plan. He charged the water, and a few of the fish died, but the rest just got angrier. He charged the water again with his wand, "Fulguris!" This time all the fish died, after a minute the electricity faded. Raven looked slightly creeped out,

"Uhh that fish's fin just moved." Willow shook her head,

"Don't be ridiculous! He just charged the stream with almost enough lightning to kill a vampire." Following her words a fish started swimming again. "Okay maybe not so ridiculous. Any other bright ideas anybody?" Aurora shrugged.

"Why don't we just build a bridge over it?" Remy grinned,

"Transmutation? That's my specialty." Remy built a bridge over to the other side arching at least 10 feet above the water. Just before he stepped on the bridge Raven grabbed him.

"Look!" The fish were jumping up and eating the stone bridge. After a while nothing was left. Remy watched in shock,

"Okay, so we have freaky undead stone eating fish that can jump over 10 feet. Now what we do?" Dmitri stared at the water,

"How about we conjure something to distract them while we cross the water?" Each of them conjured a few hundred pounds of meat for the fish to eat. They crossed while the fish were still eating and they all waded across the water. They walked for a few more hours without any obstacles, but eventually they came to the forest. Dante paused,

"My guardians told me the forest had several dangerous animals we'll either have to kill, intimidate, or befriend. Keep your eyes open yeah?" The others nodded. Almost immediately they came across a giant Rhomboid Rose. It was a special kind of flower shaped like a rhombus and it was extremely poisonous and extremely rare. Just the scent of the flower would knock out most magicals. Willow smiled, plants she could deal with,

"I'm going to try and ask it to draw its poison out of the air. Give me a second and Green Eyes." Dante moved over to her, "I'm going to need you to amplify for me okay?" He nodded and concentrated on the mental message she was relaying. As he concentrated the message grew louder and directed itself towards the roses. He listened in on the conversation she was having with the plants.

:: Excuse me? Ms. Rhomboid Rose? Hey do you think you could tone down your poison so that my friends and I can pass through? We're trying to get to Aether. ::

:: Such a well-mannered fae. I knocked out another of your kind last year for being rude and demanding, but you are polite. I will grant your request if you will tell me your name. ::

:: Thank you Ms. Rhomboid Rose, my name is Willow. ::

:: Well then Willow, come back sometime to tell me how your studies are going at Aether. Call me Ro. ::

:: I'll come back in a week, Ro. It's been a pleasure. :: Dante opened his eyes and looked up at a beaming Willow.

"Guys come over here! This is Ro, she's agreed to hold back her poison so we can get through." The rest of their group followed along saying thank you to the rhombus-shaped rose. They continued their trek across the forest encountering a couple of animals, but it was fairly quiet until they got to the end of the forest. Manny stretched and yawned,

"That wasn't so bad." As he said the words they stumbled across an Ashwinder nest. Immediately the mother came out of her hiding spot,

"Manny you jinxed us." Dmitri said jokingly to the werecat. Dante shook his head,

"Let me see if my familiar can ask her to back off." He drew Mer out and pointed at the Ashwinder."

 _What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time?_

:: It wasn't my fault she placed her nest in the single most inconvenient place in the forest. Can you negotiate our passage? ::

 _The things I do for you human. Excuse me, Grey Scales, I apologize for any inconvenience my human and his friends have caused you, but we need to get past._

 _Egg-thief! How dare you, a snake, aid an egg-thief!_ Mer drew herself up to her full height angrily hissing at the Ashwinder.

 _How dare_ you _imply that my bonded would steal another snake's eggs! Or that I would aid a human in stealing another snake's eggs._

 _He and his allies stepped into my nest. What am I supposed to think?_

 _That it was an accident caused by your poor placement of your nest. I will say this one last time, let us pass!_ Dante could hear the rushing of water, as she got angrier.

 _Very well. Tell your bonded to tell the humans to put their hands where I can see them as they pass._

 _You heard her Dante, go tell your friends to put their hands up._

"Mer was able to convince the snake to let us pass, but she needs reassurance that we won't steal her eggs. She's requested that you put your hands where she can see them as you pass through." The others nodded and went in a line. Dante went first, and one by one the rest followed him. After they got past the Ashwinder's nest they exited the forest. Aurora looked up at the sky

"Let's keep moving guys I want to be by the lake before nightfall." The others looked up at the sky it was a few hours from sunset. They'd have to set up camp soon. They were halfway to the pond when they encountered a pair of students running away from a herd of Blast-Ended Skrewts. Harry and the others rushed over to help the pair. There were about 15 and they killed the last of the hoard after a couple minutes.

"I thought they'd all killed each other. Hagrid was moaning about how the last of the vicious beasts were gone."

"Well that's Hagrid for you. I heard Professor Alexei put around 100 in here around the time Hagrid first noticed the Skrewts were killing each other." The boy with vaguely Italian features introduced himself. "You're a fellow Hogwarts alumnus aren't you? My name is Leon Zabini, Slytherin." Dante looked at him trying to figure out who he was. He thought there was a Blaise Zabini in his year, but why was a Slytherin attending Aether?

"Here's to hoping you aren't one of Malfoy's goons. Nice to meet you Zabini, my Aether name's Dante Black, Gryffindor." Leon's eyes widened.

"No I'm not one of his goons, but why are you trusting me? Gryffindors tend to believe all Slytherins are evil." Dante shook his head.

"I know the Carrow twins. Anyway I can't see the harm, it's not like you'll be able to get any message to Earth Reality until winter break, and by then I'll probably have some kind of blackmail against you or you'll be dead." Dante smirked at him. "Besides you wouldn't be allowed to attend Aether if you had the mark. The school won't accept anyone who has those kinds of pre-existing loyalties. I'd guess you came to Aether to escape getting the mark. Good luck to you." While he'd been chatting with Zabini, the others had been talking to his partner. She was obviously a dryad, which confused Dante. Weren't Dryads relatively peaceful people? And weren't they tied to their tree?

"Hello Dante Black. I knew I'd be meeting you today. How was the last month of your summer?" She said in a dreamy tone not unlike Luna's.

"It was good. Er it's nice to meet you-"

"Call me Lila." Willow took over the introductions,

"Dante, Lila's a seer. That's actually why she's here, so that she can refine her ability."

"It's so annoying, I'll be searching for naiads one moment, and the next I'm watching visions of Tom Riddle torturing his servants." She continued to speak in her dreamy tone.

"I can see how that would be an inconvenience. Do you wish to join us?"

"Of course. We've been just a step behind you for most of the journey anyway. Oh look a bread and butterfly!" He watched as Lila chased after the bread and butterflies he hadn't noticed. Leon came up to him,

"Let's keep moving, she'll follow after us. I learned that after the first three times she went off on her own."

"Okay let's go guys. Maybe we can make it to the lake in another hour." They didn't run into any other problems for the next hour and set up camp by the lake. "Shall we do shifts?" The two vampires shook their heads.

"We only need to sleep a few hours a week. We'll keep watch tonight." Raven spoke for both of them. "Who can set up a decent ward?" Warding fell to Aurora and Willow who created wards to make their campsite invisible, scentless, and soundless. Dante and Dmitri created tents and comfortable seating by the fire. Manny cooked the fish he'd gotten earlier, and Leon added some berries and vegetables he'd found while in the forest. Lila collected water and identified whether or not what Leon had gathered was poisonous. Luckily for them almost none of what he'd found was dangerous. They agreed to get up at 7 the next morning to continue their trek to school.

 **Review pretty please. Tell you what, I pretty much have the next chapter written out. I'll post it as soon as I get a review. Otherwise I'll just wait a few days. I'm thinking of updating this story biweekly.**

 **Thanks for following and favoriting my story Echonite, Elistone, Erris Wagenaar, HalfDemonDaughter, KoniK47, MaasaiGirl, Obsidian-Dragon-Phoenix, PotterinCanada, Rebecca Potter, Reos, Rie kay, Rosalind Fairchilde, Rusher156165165, Soullock 1990, The Omnitrix Conquer, branden808, jilie084, knightblazer85, lilmisdiva, maplezhar, raveygirl17, Joanna-T, Little Green Faerie Of Doom, SilverKnight99, lean238, and vintage fangs.**


	5. Welcome to Aether

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.**

 **A/N: Thank you Rosalind Fairchilde for being the first to review. (Sorry it took me so long to post this, but I was asleep until like 10 minutes ago) Anyway here's the chapter as promised.**

The next morning Dante woke up to a face full of water courtesy of a grinning Raven. "What the hell?"

"You never said _how_ to wake you guys up." Dante shook his head. He'd never understand vampires. Did they really need to be _told_ not to wake someone up with water? Dante cast a wandless spell at Raven to fluff up his hair like Einstein's, gave him a devil's tail and turned his skin the same color as his eyes. Raven narrowed his eyes at him, "What'd you do?"

"What do you mean?" Dante asked a little too innocently.

"Whatever, we're heading off in 20 minutes, get ready." Raven walked out of the tent and Dante started snickering, a few seconds later he heard the vampire's undignified screech.

"DANTE BLACK YOU ARE A DEAD MAN!" He just snickered at the vampire's attempts to open his tent and strangle him. Eventually he heard the others drag him away to fix his appearance. When Dante finally came out of his tent Raven's hair was back to normal, his skin was back to ridiculously pale, and the devil's tail was gone. That did not however prevent him from lunging at Dante. Remy grabbed a hold of Raven before he could attack Dante.

"As interesting as I think a fight between the two of you would be, I'd like to get to school sometime today." Raven glared at Remy.

"What are you implying Lebeau?" Remy rolled his eyes.

"C'mon Chevalier, get your head out of your arse. You're a vampire, how powerful does Dante smell?" Raven sighed.

"Yeah yeah I know. Sorry for going all vampire lord on you Rem." Dante was confused,

"How powerful I smell?" Remy nodded and explained,

"Aside from drinking blood, vampires can also tell how powerful a non-vampire is by smelling their blood. You got a couple of cuts yesterday that you haven't healed up." Dante nodded at his explanation wondering how he could hide his scent. As if he'd read his mind Remy continued, "You won't be able to hide it, or at least you won't be able to hide your scent from a powerful vampire. Now let's get going." The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. Lila told them their next and final obstacle lied just before the doors, and she was right. Unfortunately she was also right when she said it was a rather dangerous monster.

"Lila for future reference what you call a 'rather dangerous monster' the rest of us call 'so ridiculously dangerous why would they even have this thing guarding the doors monster'!" Willow said gestured at the awakening dragon. "How on earth do they expect us to defeat a Ukrainian Ironbelly?" The giant dragon snorted a stream of fire at a panicking Willow. Dante waved a hand in front of her face,

"Stop panicking Daisy! They wouldn't have put this in front of the door if they didn't think we could get past it. Put your brain power towards a strategy."

"Right a strategy, a strategy, how about this? Run!" As she said this the dragon beat it's tail down at the group and they scattered. She turned to face Dante with a smile, "Hey Green Eyes I've got a plan!" Dante looked at her expectantly,

"Alright let's hear it."

"It will be virtually impossible to kill the dragon, so all we have to do is incapacitate it. You hit it with as much lightning as you can. Manny and Blake match his fire with their own. Raven aim the wind currents down to the ground. Remy yell a bunch of insults at him, distract him from the others. Maybe together you can knock it out of the sky. After that Aurora, Lila and I will try to encase him with plants. If that doesn't work we'll figure out a plan on the fly. Go!" Dante ran to a spot where he could see the dragon who had taken to the skies. It tried flaming Remy, who was coming up with some pretty colorful insults, but Manny and Blake fought it's fire back with their own streams joining into one. Dante used this time to strike it with all the lightning he could.

"FULGURIS!" Several thick lightning bolts hit the dragon at the same time and Raven stopped the air currents so the dragon dropped like a stone. When the dragon hit the ground Aurora, Lila, and Willow grew vines out of the ground to wrap them around the dragon. In a minute Dante couldn't even see the dragon. With their final obstacle out of the way Dante and the others turned to the gates panting. Remy threw an Alohomora and the gates opened wide. Past the gates they could see all their Professors and the Headmistress standing in a half circle facing the new students.

"Welcome to Aether School of Magic, Dante Black, Raven Chevalier, Dmitri Belkov, Willow of the Mnemosyne, Manolo Rodriguez, Remy Lebeau, Aurora of the Wood Elves, Leon Zabini, and Lila of the Dryads." She glanced over each of them. "I am most impressed with your skills, that Ukrainian Ironbelly wasn't supposed to be guarding the doors. We will be disposing of it in a few minutes, we'll send you the scavenged materials."

"Scavenged? Isn't the dragon still alive?" The Headmistress smiled.

"I do believe your lightning storm was more than enough to kill that dragon Mr. Black. It was already weakened from trying to roast you and your friends. The lightning storm, followed by the 1,000 foot fall certainly finished it off." She glanced at Willow, Aurora, and Lila, "If you would unwrap those vines, we'd like to finish this before the next group arrives at the gate. As it stands you were the first group to reach the gates. I believe you should speak with Cyrus about that little matter we discussed earlier now." Dante looked back at his new friends apologetically.

"I'll see you guys at breakfast." The professors were milling about, enjoying their last few days of freedom. Dante approached the djinn Headmistress had pointed out. Cyrus' skin was light blue, his hair was a natural looking red, and his green eyes were focused on Dante.

"You're Evans and Potter's kid aren't you. I saw your light show earlier, it was fairly impressive, for a mortal." Dante nodded.

"When I went to get my wand Jahan gave me this note to give to you. He also told me to take your class." Cyrus motioned for Dante to hand over the note. After reading it over he asked to see Dante's wand. His eyes widened and he read over the note again.

"Well the bloodsucker was right as usual. Your wand is made out of black walnut wood and an electrically charged Hungarian Horntail's heartstring. Both have a strong connection to lightning. I also know you were struck by lightning when you were a baby, your mother told me a month before she died. You'll be an excellent elemental once you're trained up properly. I'll see you in class." Cyrus turned away from him abruptly, effectively ending the conversation.

"Don't worry about him. He still can't accept the fact that not all mortals are scum. Your mother and the Headmistress are pretty much the only humans he's ever really liked." Harry turned around to see yet another vampire. "You're in my class as well Mr. Black. I'm Professor Alexei and I teach Cruor Sorcery. I believe you're also in my tower." Professor Alexei was tall and light haired unlike most vampires. The difference was that his eyes were purple instead of the usual vampiric red.

"I'm looking forward to classes Professor. Your tower? And why are you teaching a first level class aren't you the Head Cruor Sorcerer?" Alexei smiled, inadvertently showing off his fangs, or it could be intentional Dante was unsure about him so far.

"That's right the Headmistress hasn't explained yet. The tower system was devised so that students would all be assigned to a professor to come to if they ran into any problems. The first favor is free, but after that we set a price on every favor. As for teaching a first level class, I was politely requested by the Headmistress to take on a first level class this year." He made a face at that and Dante supposed the Headmistress was forcing him plain and simple. "You and some of your allies 'just happen' to be in that class. You can read between the lines yes?" Dante nodded.

"You just said the Headmistress is up to some nefarious plan that involves you and my group of allies." Alexei patted him on the back and Dante tensed slightly hoping the vampire hadn't noticed.

"Glad you caught on. Now scurry off to the tower before she comes over here and convinces you that you're just imagining things, she's rather good at that. And here's a free piece of advice use every kind of ward you know, and create a few new ones. There's a very interesting first day of school prank the older students pull on the first-form students."

Dante ran off to ward his room shouting a 'thank you' at Professor Alexei as he ran off. Cyrus approached Alexei after Dante left.

"That was nice of you Alexei."

"I'm capable of being nice. You're the one who said vampires weren't nice."

"No actually I said vampires aren't nice unless they want something. Which begs the question why are you being nice?"

"Can't I just be nice because I feel like it?"

"You? You don't do nice because you 'feel like it' ever."

"When will you let that go? I was young and stupid, and I had almost no control. Jahan's long since forgiven me."

"Answer the question please." Alexei sighed loudly.

"He's got power rolling off him in waves and Morgana put him in my class. Does that answer your question?"

"You want him to join your clan under the guise of an apprentice?"

"No, I'm not sure yet. I haven't even seen him do cruor magic yet. For all I know he could be a complete failure at it. Still he's got potential."

"You want him indebted to you?"

"No Cyrus, I want to wait and see if he has any potential in cruor magic. If he does I want him as an apprentice. I won't turn him, actually as he is right now he can't be changed anyway."

"He can't?"

"No, he has a kitsune soul. I can see the magic flows around him; they curl around like a fox tail. Let's just hope he turns out better than the last one."

"James and Lily's son a kitsune? I can definitely see that. His godfather was one of your favorite students once upon a time. A shame what happened.

"I forgot that they didn't tell you about their plan. You were away, I'd ask the Headmistress before you make a comment and upset the boy."

"Hmph. I will ask. I still don't trust you, but if you truly have no shady intentions I'll let it go."

"Do you really care so much for a mortal human?"

"He's Lily's son. I will always watch over his line."

"Careful Cy Cy, you almost sounded like you had actual emotions for a minute there." Cyrus glared at him. "Don't worry about him too much, he's chosen strong allies. They took down a dragon together, and they haven't even been trained properly yet. Imagine what they'll be able to do once they've graduated."

"That is if they survive to graduation. One will die before the year is up." Alexei studied Cyrus' face.

"Your freaky djinn gift?" When Cyrus nodded Alexei shook his head.

"He's already been through many hardships."

"How can you tell?"

"He flinches from touch." Cyrus looked ill.

"Excuse me."

Meanwhile Dante was up in his room throwing wards at his door, walls, and windows. At Hogwarts students assumed the twins didn't prank him. The truth was that after the first prank he'd started warding his bed and belongings. The twins had taken this as a declaration of a war and had doubled their efforts to prank him. No one else knew about the silent war, and the twins had given up this past year being too far away and far too busy to try and prank him. Of course along with that came the understanding that if they were ever under the same roof they'd use every prank they knew to humiliate him. As a result Dante had quite the arsenal of wards to place on his suite.

After he was finished warding his rooms he set to decorating. The suite was surprisingly spacious. There was a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a sunny balcony, which was a real pain to ward. He started with painting the walls. He just flicked color charms at each wall. In the living room he put a couple of really fluffy clouds as a sofas and made a couple beanbags just in case. In his bedroom he put a water bed, conjured a dresser, and spent the next half hour squishing his bed. As the bathroom was already finished he spent the rest of the time lounging on his sofa with a book about the fae.

Ding-dong! His doorbell rang and he wondered what Raven could possibly need now.

 _Are you going to answer the door?_

 _Could you?_

 _I'm a snake._

 _But aren't you the one that said snakes were vastly superior to all other creatures? I'm sure you're capable of opening a door handle._

 _I see what you're doing and I'm not falling for it. Get up and answer your door._ Dante pouted and opened the door to be greeted with 8 familiar faces.

"Um hey guys? What are all of you doing here?" They all shouldered past him to sit on the couches and beanbags. Lila answered,

"We're all in this tower together. It's actually rather odd considering there are 50 towers and each has almost 30 suites. Together we take up 9 of those suites." Dante nodded, he wondered if what Professor Alexei had said earlier about the headmistress and her plans applied to this as well.

"Professor Alexei seems pretty cool. He said he'll be teaching us this year, something about the Headmistress requested he take on a single class of first-form students." Raven snorted.

"I'll bet he just loved that. Professor Alexei may be one of the oldest vampires in existence and he's been around since the founding of the school, but no one turns down Headmistress Le Fay's polite requests." Manny looked over at him,

"You bloodsuckers actually keep track of how old you are compared to the other bloodsuckers?" Raven sneered at him,

"Contrary to popular belief a vampire's world does not revolve completely around blood and sex. I couldn't say the same for weres and the moon," Manny just laughed.

"Your world may not completely revolve around blood and sex, but your society certainly does." Raven after thinking for a minute had to agree,

"Well technically our society revolves around power. Blood and sex for a vampire is mostly about power. Blood increases our power, and sex is just a form of dominance. Why are you so interested? Want to become a vampire's toy?" Manny shook his head.

"Give it up Raven, you may be an heir, but you and your clan are well known for protesting that form of slavery." Dante cut in.

"Infinitium Reality has slaves?" Remy explained,

"Where did you think Earth Reality came up with the idea? Vampires have always had slaves. It's only been in the last few centuries some clans have started to think it's wrong. If the vampires progress at this rate slavery will disappear in the next century or two, but yes we do have slaves." Willow snorted,

"Speak for yourselves, vampires and humans are the only cultures that have ever had slaves. Even the goblins won't stoop so low." She turned to Dante, "You have to understand that Infinitium Reality _shaped_ Earth Reality. Most big advancements can be tied back to us, so calling it muggle culture would be incorrect. Honestly purebloods can be so thickheaded, talking about how muggleborns are polluting their bloodlines and traditions. Now enough heavy talk, did anyone bring any video games? I promised Dmitri I'd kick his ass at Runespoors." Leon produced a video game console Dante had never seen before and Remy conjured a TV so that the two could go head to head in their new favorite fighter video game. As promised Willow beat Dmitri and the rest of the evening was spent cycling between the others until Lila beat Willow. Manny eventually beat Lila, and Raven beat Manny. Dante failed at the game epically, and Aurora had sat out pretending to be a sports commentator.

"And Raven enters the ring. He chose an Ashwinder against Remy's Occamy. I would've gone for the Basilisk, but Raven's only a half decent strategist at best."

"That's it! After this round is over I'm challenging you Miss Prissy Wood Elf!" Aurora laughed,

"Don't get too cocky Raven, there's a very good chance Remy will beat you. Ooh and look at that Occamy go. He bit straight down the middle of the Ashwinder, but oh was that part of Raven's strategy? He's throwing Ashwinder eggs at the Occamy and its health is down. Now the Occamy activated it's special power and Raven lost!" At around 11 PM he kicked everyone out of his rooms.

"Alright everybody party's over! Out of my rooms, I'm going to sleep. Out! Out! You too Noir! I'll see you guys in the morning!" He slumped against the door activating his wards as he did so. "Time for sleep," he muttered to himself as he straightened out and made his way towards his bed falling into it with a sigh. He was asleep before he hit the mattress.

He woke up groggily to the sound of an alarm clock he was sure he hadn't put in his room. He cast a tempus and saw it was 6:30 and then rolled over to where the sound was coming from. As it turned out it wasn't an alarm clock, but the alarm that sounded when someone tried to break into his wards. Key word being tried, his wards were obviously holding so he went outside to figure out who was trying to break into his suite a half hour before breakfast. Everyone was standing outside his door, Lila was the one poking at his wards.

"Morning, now what are you guys doing awake and stuff? Or rather what are you guys doing awake and poking at my wards?" Lila answered,

"Don't worry I can't break your wards despite actually knowing how many there are and which wards you used. I doubt any of the students can either." Dmitri answered,

"We're here to wake you up and crash on your couch while you get dressed. So hurry up and get dressed." Dante stared at them all and decided to leave it while he took a shower. When he came back out everyone was asleep so he conjured a fog horn to wake them up.

Five minutes later they were all making their way down the stairs glaring at Dante who was making an excellent Cheshire Cat impersonation. They grabbed trays of food and sat down at a round table with seating for 9. In the rush they'd all forgotten their schedules, not that it really mattered today was just a free day. A female vampire approached Raven,

"Hey Raven! I heard that you were part of the first group to reach Aether. Is it true you guys killed a dragon?" Raven nodded and she continued, "Awesome! Mind introducing me to your group?" Raven introduced her to everyone.

"Guys this is Océane Bourdeaux, Océane meet Dante Black, Dmitri Belkov, Willow, Manolo Rodriguez, Remy Lebeau, Aurora, Leon Zabini, and Lila." They all smiled and nodded at her as their names were called.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all. It's a pretty diverse group you have Black, never thought I'd see the day a Chevalier vampire was led by a human." She smiled at him pleasantly and walked off to chat with another one of her friends. Dante stared at Raven and Remy expectantly.

"It's a vampire thing. What do you know about vampire clan structure?" Dante shrugged, "Right back to basics then. Vampires organize themselves by one of two things, either they join the clan of their creator, or they join the clan of a specific area. The most powerful vampire is of course the clan's leader. In France most of the clan leaders were also nobility at one point. Clans are also ranked against each other. My father is the head of the Chevalier clan, the most powerful clan in France. Father is like the vampire king of France, which makes me a prince in the eyes of other vampires. Chevalier vampires are known for their skill in battle. Basically what Océane did was acknowledge you as a ridiculously powerful human."

"But how does she figure I'm the leader of the group?" Remy sighed,

"Remember how we told you yesterday that we can smell power in blood? She can smell you. You have more raw magic than any human sorcerer we've ever met and that includes your old headmaster Dumbledore. Aside from that you're sitting at the head of the table, and we congregated in your room; to us vampires, weres, djinns, fae, and elves those actions mean something." Manny and the others nodded in agreement.

"This is a round table. How is this the head of the table?" Willow laughed,

"You'll do anything to get out of the spotlight won't you Green Eyes? Your seat has armrests, ours don't and don't conjure us armrests. You're the leader of this group whether you like it or not." Dante shook his head,

"Let's talk about something else please?" After a little more teasing they acquiesced to his request. Dante wondered about how he'd ended up in the leader position again. He remembered his family motto and decided not to protest too much. Later on the way back to their rooms Willow drew him off to the side.

"Why do you hate being in the spotlight so much Green Eyes?" Dante shook his head.

"The problem isn't so much being in the spotlight. It's just the wizarding world always praised me for something I didn't even remember doing. After that my fame was always a problem, some people call me an attention seeker, while others call me the next dark lord. I'm tired of it." Willow smiled at him sympathetically,

"Green Eyes you're special, you draw people to you. Yes you were famous for something you don't remember doing, but they don't know your real name. Actually, as of yesterday you aren't Harry Potter anymore, that's just an alias. Here you're going to be praised or criticized for your actual talents and shortcomings. It's a good thing to be recognized for your talents and accomplishments isn't it?" Dante nodded. "Glad you understand Green Eyes, otherwise I figured I'd just knock some sense into you." Dante playful put up his fists and the two went over to the sparring room to burn off some energy. Sometime after lunch they went back to his suite to wait for the others. Just outside he could hear the sounds of all of them playing video games inside. He opened the door and sure enough they were sprawled over his three couches.

"How did you get past my wards? And where'd the extra couch come from?" Raven grinned up at him,

"Your familiar opened the door. As for the extra couch Remy conjured it." He glared at Mer who was lounging on the couch next to Raven.

:: Traitor! ::

 _You never said I couldn't open the door while you were outside._

:: From now on you're coming with me when I walk out the door. ::

 _That was the idea._ Dante shook his head.

"You are one devious snake." He turned his head to Raven, "Where's your familiar?" Raven waved a hand at the balcony.

"He said he wanted to feel the sunshine. He's not the only one out there either. You'll see," Dante passed the living room and walked out on his balcony. There was of course Raven's familiar, Noir, but there was also a Will o the Wisp, a Pegasus, a lemur, a hell hound, a griffin, a fire salamander, and a black phoenix basking in the sun. Dante shook his head left Mer to join the other animals and returned to the living room to sit on his couch.

"Which animal belongs to who?" Remy answered somewhat distractedly,

"The Will o the Wisp is Dmitri's, her name is Stella. The small Pegasus belongs to Willow; his name is Arion. The magical lemur belongs to Manny; her name is Lulu. The hellhound is mine; her name is Jackie. Darn it Willow you can't keep using that move over and over again it isn't fair! The griffin is Aurora's; his name is Rex. Shit! I'm never playing against you again Willow! The fire salamander is Leon's; her name is Fieri. Aww that wasn't cool man! The black phoenix is Lila's; his name is Scooby. You'll see why at dinner." Remy threw the controller at Lila.

"Here you're pretty much the only one who can beat her in these games anyway." Remy looked over at Dante, "The girls decided to redecorate your suite while you were out. Hope you like the modifications." Dante looked around and realized that there was now an actual color scheme and a variety of knick knacks strewn about carefully.

"S'Alright, it was a mess before, but I'm not good with that kind of stuff." Aurora snorted,

"No kidding, my 5 year old sister could've put together a better design." Dante blushed,

"Oops?" Aurora mussed his hair,

"You're lucky you're cute. Hey is your hair naturally this color? I've heard glamors and hair dyes not originating from Aether will disappear as soon as you step inside and your hair was white before we arrived." Raven butted in,

"It's his Animagus mark, any chance you'll tell us what your form is?" Dante shook his head. Raven booed, but let it go. Aether students had a competition of sorts, whoever could figure out the animagus forms and names of the most students by graduation won a prize. What the prize was they weren't told until 3rd year, but guessing by the way 3rd years tried harder than any other year to figure out other students' forms and names it must be pretty good.

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," Raven said in a lecherous vampire voice. Dante and the others laughed at him, "What? I thought that was pretty spot on, wasn't it?" Dmitri nodded.

"It was perfect bloodsucker, absolutely perfect!" Raven sat back challenging anyone else to start laughing at him. Remy accepted the challenge,

"You're the perfect vampire you know? You dress all in black, value power above all else, you're obsessed with blood, and you're a total slut." Raven looked down at him playfully.

"Don't be jealous because I'm better at being a vampire than you are. It takes a special level of skill to be a vampire. A skill you seem to lack Lebeau." Willow shook her head at him,

"Not funny Raven, not funny at all." She looked at Remy questioningly, "Your last name is Lebeau? Is your brother the one who was in the mess hall declaring that vampires were superior to all creatures and that we should all bow down to him?" Remy groaned,

"That sounds like him. What have the older students done to him?"

"Nothing so far, but a few of the humans looked particularly angry when he started raving about humans and how they should be excluded from the school. I wouldn't be surprised if he dies before the year is up." Remy nodded,

"I told Papa, but he insisted that he should come as well. Mama was torn, but she said that if he was stupid enough to spout off his beliefs at school he should die. If he wasn't my brother I would've killed him long ago, then again if he angers me sufficiently I'll kill him anyway."

"Why are the two of you so different? I mean you actually like Green Eyes and Leon, and your brother just blindly hates mortals." Remy rubbed his eyes,

"Have you ever met Lord Lebeau? He's one of Papa's brothers, but that's besides the point. Theodore was found and turned by Lord Lebeau and then given to Papa and Mama. Ever since he idolizes him, but Lord Lebeau only started to notice him when we got into Aether. Lord Lebeau hates humans, back when he was still human he was tortured by a few muggles and nearly burnt at the stake. Theo tries to emulate Lord Lebeau, but he also probably believes that muggles and humans are trash."

"That's kind of sad. Are any of the other Lebeau clan vampires here?" Remy shook his head,

"They weren't accepted. We're the first Lebeau vampires to get into Aether this century. Which is probably why Papa wouldn't listen to me when I told him Theodore will get himself killed here. Aether doesn't tolerate bullies, and the Headmistress herself is sort of human." Willow realizing Remy didn't want to talk about it turned the conversation to the start of classes tomorrow.

"Hey do you guys have your schedules with you?" Everyone pulled out a schedule and Dante ran over to his room to get his class list.

"Looks like we're all together for Elemental magic and Healing. Why am I with the vampires and were for Cruor Sorcery?" Lila answered,

"Cruor Sorcery classes tend to be mostly vampires and weres. Humans are too afraid of death, and fae magic tends to react badly with Cruor Sorcery. Djinns on the other hand consider cruor magic unholy and a freak of nature. Professor Alexei takes that as a compliment, they call him a freak of nature as well." Not for the first time everyone wondered how her gift worked. "We should get going. Meals will be sent to our rooms tonight. I'll see you all at breakfast. Follow along Scooby!" The others filed out bidding their adieus to Dante. He stretched out on his couch next to Mer.

 _What do you think of them?_

 _They are sensible allies. Maybe they'll prevent you from getting into trouble._

 _I don't get into trouble that often._

 _Says the human who killed a dragon yesterday._

 _Whatever, that wasn't an answer. What do you think of them?_

 _I think you will grow attached to them, so I will like them._

 _You make it sound like a chore._

 _Go get dinner hatchling. You tire me with your constant chitchatting._ Dante straightened out grumbling about bossy snakes. He wondered what classes tomorrow would be like.

 **What do you guys think of Mer? And this was my first time writing a piece of a scene without Harry. The Marauders aren't going to show up again until winter break, but I'm thinking of doing a little ficlet about Padfoot and Talon. I'll tell you if I decide to post it.**


	6. First Day of Classes

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.**

 **A/N: People have started to review! Yes I am so happy! I wrote this out after seeing the second comment. Hope you like!**

Dante heard his alarms go off at midnight, but just rolled over and went back to sleep forgetting about it immediately. He woke up at 6:30 AM and made it down to breakfast at 7 AM noticing that he couldn't find any other first-form students. He approached a fourth-form human hoping they'd be friendly.

"Excuse me do you know why all of the first-form students are missing?" She looked him up and down,

"Yeah actually it's the start of school prank the upper classmen pull on the firsties. You must be the one who sealed their rooms so well even us fourth-form students couldn't get in. Good job." She was a redhead with blue eyes, and she certainly didn't look like a fighter, but Aether also trained the best healers in the realities, so what she was training for was anyone's guess.

"So should I ask or just-" She laughed.

"Anything goes for the first part and as soon as they step on their floor they'll be tied up and hanging upside down. I was almost late for class getting down that year. Nice to meetcha firstie, my name's Scarlet. What's yours?"

"My name's Dante. How high are the chances that they'll see this as a challenge to try and prank me later on in the year?"

"Zero. Your wards were insane, I actually know some of the students who were trying to break into your rooms. They're Ward experts, and they couldn't get into your rooms. They'll be after you to teach them a couple, but they'll respect you. Actually you've got the respect of most of the school, teachers included. I think someone woke the Warding professor to look at your wards. He said they were some of the best he'd seen, and that he wasn't going to break them for a prank, after that everyone just left. Want to come and eat lunch with me seeing as your class is all tied up?" Dante nodded and went to sit with her group.

"Hey guys here's the firstie whose room we couldn't break into." Her five friends stopped talking immediately, the female vampire sighed,

"Darn you're a human male. Who was the one recording what everyone bet?" She addressed this to the next table over. A gold skinned girl raised her hand and shouted back,

"Who is it?" Then a green haired guy at the table stopped the vampire,

"Wait Veronique, he doesn't look human to me. Humans don't have white hair or eyes that color of green." She shook her head,

"He's human I can smell it, his hair is probably his animagus mark. I don't know what the deal is with his eyes though. Why are your eyes that color?" She asked Dante.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, I've met other people with eyes as green as mine." She shook her head.

"You must be from Earth Reality. I've heard that some humans from Earth Reality's eyes change color when they cross over, but I've never seen any evidence of it before." The golden skinned girl had gotten up and walked over to the table,

"Alright, so you're the one with the wards huh?" Dante nodded, "Alright you're a human male which means that Ara won the bet. Here the pot was 1,150 galleons, a unicorn horn, and a phoenix feather." She passed a burlap sack to a dark haired elf. "Good job mortal. You must either have a real talent for wards or a real need for them." The djinn walked back to her table.

"I don't think I've ever seen physical objects used in a bet before." Dante commented as he sat down. The Elf explained the bets at Aether,

"That's only for the interracial bets. The vampires think its acceptable to use sex in a vampire betting pool. Humans generally bet hours of study help or enchantments. Fae bet animals and plants, goblins only bet money, Elves bet favors and sometimes true names if the stakes are very high, dwarves bet with gems, and I've never actually seen a gnome betting pool. My name's Ara, it's nice to meet you mortal," Dante nodded,

"My name's Dante. It's nice to meet you to." Ha was sitting between Scarlet and the vampire who'd spoken earlier, Veronique he thought her name was,

"You know Quicksilver brought up a good point. Why are you so good at warding? I'm in my last year and in these four years no one has ever warded their rooms tight enough to evade the first day of school prank. Where did you learn all those wards?" Dante smirked,

"My friends and guardians are all pranksters. We've had a silent prank war going on for years. I became good at warding and they progressed at pranking, until eventually they couldn't break any of my wards." The green haired boy nodded,

"That would make most people very good at warding. Watch out today, all the warding students will be after you to pick your brains. It's nice to meet you human, my name is Everett,beauty can call me Quicksilver, and the rude vampire who hasn't introduced herself is Veronique Chevalier." She snorted at him,

"You're lucky you're a fae. If you were a vampire I'd cut out your tongue for your remark Seelie." He just grinned at her,

"Moving on, the unusually quiet one over in the corner is Jared Hunter." A sandy haired boy with brown eyes smiled at Dante,

"Ignore him, he's just feeling playful because he's out of his house and away from his evil stepmother." Quicksilver's jaw dropped,

"You've met her Jared. You can't make fun of me for saying she's the worst creature in existence anymore. I can't wait until I graduate and can move out to become a Rune Master." Dante decided to ask against his better judgment,

"What's so bad about her?" Scarlet shook her head,

"Woman's a spiteful hag. Bitches at everybody all day long, moaning about how she should have been born higher up in the courts so she could've married someone respectable. As if anyone would've taken her. No offense to your dad Quicksilver, but her only redeeming quality is her cooking." Quicksilver grunted,

"It's okay. It's not like he _wanted_ to marry her anyway. Let's talk about something more interesting. Ara who are you apprenticing under for your Mind Magics mastery?" They made small talk for the rest of the hour and then parted ways as the bell rang. He knew they had 30 minutes to get to class, but he rushed in hopes he'd avoid the warding students. As it turned out he was the first person to class.

"Mr. Black, take a seat as we wait for your other classmates." Her classroom was rather informal. Instead of desks, students sat in armchairs. Ara had told him the Headmistress required that students used a DictaQuill during her lectures.

"Yes Headmistress."

"Call me Professor, you are after all one of my students. Tell me will you need Parseltongue magic tutoring?"

"How-"

"Do I know you can speak Parseltongue Mr. Black? You have your mother's eyes Mr. Black." Dante nodded,

"I'd like tutoring, but who would tutor me? I thought that Riddle was the only other Parseltongue, and he isn't exactly someone I'd want from tutoring from." She shook her head,

"I'll ask Alexei if he can find the time to tutor you. Parseltongue used to be a common magical gift, but most of the lines ended with the witch burnings. There's probably still 10 or so in Infinitium Reality and a couple more in earth Reality. Your talent will probably score you some points with the vampires once it comes out. Which you're going to need. Welcome to class Mr. Lebeau, and Lila! You're early!" Dante tensed hoping they hadn't overheard the conversation. Lila whispered in his ear,

"Willow and I are the only ones who know. Willow because you told her back then, and I know because I know who you are. Raven's suspicious though. He'll probably confront you today or tomorrow." Dante nodded he'd already figured that she knew his old name. Remy plunked down on his other side.

"How'd you get down so fast Dante? Even Raven didn't get disentangled until breakfast was over." Dante smirked,

"You haven't heard yet? I'm the freaky firstie whose wards were impossible to break. I spent breakfast learning about the betting pools here." Remy stared at him,

"I can't believe it. No actually I can believe it, I've already noticed strange stuff happens to and around you." Dante shrugged and pointed at Headmistress who was starting the lecture.

"In order to learn Void Magic, you must first understand the Void. Can anyone tell me what the Void is? Yes Mr. Kilo."

"The Void is the space between the 12 Realities." She nodded,

"That's true, but what is it? What's it made of? What happens when you touch it? Is there anything living in it? Can sound travel through it? Why does it exist? Can anyone answer these questions?" The students shook their heads and looked around, "Well it goes back to the creation of the 12 Realities. They used to be part of one giant ever-expanding Reality, but there was a war between the angels and the fallen. After being locked in a war with the fallen for six centuries the angels came up with a weapon to obliterate the fallen, but it came at a price. The Reality would be split into several pieces and some pieces would fall into the Void. The angels cracked open the Reality, the fallen fell into the void, turning into demons and over time every reality except for Earth Reality and Infinitium Reality has crumbled into the Void. The Void isn't nothing as you've been told, it's what the humans call Hell. As you progress in Void Magic you'll be testing what you can do with the magic you harvest from the Void. In four years, if you're still here you should be able to use many forms of Void magic. Now we're going out of Aether's courtyard for this lesson, stand in the circle." Dante watched as a white circle appeared, and he stepped into it. Mer poked her head out,

 _We're doing this again? Fun!_ Dante shook his head at her, his familiar was so strange. He watched as Professor Le Fay waved her wand and felt as the ground started shaking. He saw a flash of white and when he opened his eyes he saw they were on the edges of Aether. In the distance he could see the borders of other Realities. In between the Realities was all black, the Realities looked as if they'd been ripped up from the ground with some of the earth still attached. According to Professor Le Fay these smaller Realities were remnants of the original 12 Realities. He wondered if every Reality would eventually fall into the Void, but brushed it off as impossible.

"As I said before your ability to do Void Magic depends on how much you harness from the Void. Be careful, there is a limit on how much your body can handle. If you take so much as a speck more the magic will overwhelm your body and kill you." The students looked uneasy at her words, "You'll know how much to take, otherwise no one would ever survive this class and I'd be long since dead. Watch as I harness the magic, and try to copy me." Dante saw as she reached out into the Void and grabbed at the darkness. It divided into strands and she pulled them away from the Void and fed them into her hands.

After watching her do this for a few minutes the class moved to emulate her. Dante put his hand out into the Void and felt the strands sliding past it; he grabbed a few and fed a strand into his other hand. The veins in that hand glowed purple as the magic settled in his body. He knew he'd be able to feed four more strands of 6 feet each into his magic and he grasped at them. The tricky part of the harvesting was grabbing the strands. In the void they were sliding past and when he grabbed at them some slipped out, but as soon as he pulled them across they fell limp.

He finished and faced the front to see the Headmistress was still feeding magic into herself. "As you become more accustomed to Void Magic you'll be able to put more in your magic channels. I started out with two strands, but now I could feed thousands into my magic." She waited a couple minutes for the class to finish up. "We're heading back to the school for now. It will take a day for your body to break the magic down so you can use it." Another circle appeared and the class stepped in. He saw the flash of light and felt as they entered into their classroom. "Class dismissed, I expect you all here awake and ready to learn tomorrow morning, and don't use the Void Magic until tomorrow. If you do I'll tear you up and feed you to my familiar, understood?" Dante nodded and nearly ran out the door. He had Cruor Sorcery next and it was straight across the school. On the way there he ran into Manny and Remy who were also running to Cruor Sorcery. They got just there with a few minutes to spare and collapsed into chairs next to a smirking Raven.

"What class did you have before this?"

"Potions" Manny got out between pants,

"Dark Arts" Remy answered,

"Void Magic, what'd you have?" Dante answered.

"Hand to Hand Combat, it's in the next spire over." The other three boys glared at him. "What can I say? The Headmistress must like me." Dante motioned at him to shut up and pointed. In the door came one Theodore Lebeau, Remy groaned.

"I'm going to kill him this year, I can feel it." Theodore was talking and laughing with a female vampire who was hanging off his arm. Dante wondered why she seemed so infatuated with him. "And Amelia's with him, this isn't going to go well." Contrary to Remy's expectations Theo ignored their group and sat at the front of the class talking to Amelia. He and everyone else shut up when Professor Alexei came in.

"Welcome to Cruor Sorcery class! At the request of the headmistress I've taken on a first-form class this year. Take advantage of this because unless she asks or I take a special interest in one of you I won't be repeating this." His glanced at Dante as he said this. "Now to begin with half of the deaths at Aether occur in a Cruor magic classroom who can tell me why? Mr. Lebeau!" Remy answered

"They bleed to death Sir." The professor nodded.

"Correct! If you make a mistake and end up bleeding to death in my classroom I will let you. In order to prevent this the first week we'll spend going over a set of blood runes that will prevent you from bleeding out on my floor. It is what we call a limiter, and it will send a signal to your brain when you don't have enough blood to use Cruor magic. Leave yourself a 5% margin for error. Blood runes are guided by instinct so you will know what to draw and how much power to channel into the runes. If your instinct is telling you something is wrong with your ritual, listen to it. If you don't your runes may end up faulty or impotent. Both are equally dangerous." He spent the rest of the period drawing out runes and telling them what each rune meant. Dante kept a record of which runes he had a strong connection with. He had a particularly strong connection with Sowilo. He supposed this was to be expected, as it was a rune in the shape of a lightning bolt and his old scar. By the end of the class Dante knew his ritual would be a one-piece ritual and now he had to choose a blade. "Class dismissed. Mr. Black I need to speak with you now." Dante walked over to the professor waving off his friend's worried looks.

"What do you need to speak with me about?" Dante asked.

"The Headmistress sent me a message before class started. I'm sure you know about the contents." Dante nodded, "We'll do tutoring on Saturdays after lunch if that's convenient." Dante nodded again. "Excellent! I'll see you tomorrow I'm looking forward to seeing what your ritual will look like. I believe you have Weaponry next? It's in the next tower over so you won't be late. Goodbye Mr. Black." Dante ran off to the silver tower catching up with Raven.

"What'd he want?"

"Nothing important." Raven looked at him,

"Alexei is the Head Cruor Sorcerer here and one of the oldest vampires in existence. He doesn't ask to see a student after class for 'nothing important' Dante." He shrugged.

"Let me rephrase that then. Nothing pertaining to you." Dante said with a raised eyebrow. Raven getting the message shut up and they faced the Weaponry teacher.

"Welcome to Weaponry class! I am Professor Vilkas. I will be your Weaponry teacher for the next year or until you die or until you drop the class, it's your choice." He shrugged as if to say he didn't particularly care either way, "We'll start with blades the first three months, staffs the month after that, whips are after that, then bows, then fist weapons, and blunt weapons to wrap up the year. The three years after that you'll spend with a teacher specializing in a certain kind of weapon. For example, those of you who choose fist weapons will stay with me. Today we're heading over to the weapons locker to learn how to properly take care of a blade, and so that you can choose which weapon you'll be using for the next three months. Follow me." Professor Vilkas, Dante decided, must be a werewolf. First there was the shade of amber his eyes had turned during class, and his name itself. Vilkas meant wolf, but he wasn't sure what language it meant wolf in.

The class followed the professor to a small closet. When the professor opened the doors it became obvious the closet was magically expanded. Dante ran into Aurora and Leon.

"You're in this class too? That's great I had wandless first period and I didn't recognize anybody, after that I had Experimental Potions and only Lila was there." Dante stiffened in alarm,

"You took wandless magic?" Leon shrugged,

"Yeah, I'm not really all that good at it, but the class is ridiculously easy." Raven shook his head,

"You don't understand Leon. Taking wandless at Aether sends up a red signal to every other student that you're weak. You're expected to know wandless magic before you enroll here. I'd recommend dropping that class and asking one of us to tutor you. Otherwise the other students will see you as easy prey." Leon's eyes widened in fear,

"Tell me you're just messing with me. Please tell me you're just messing with me." Dante shook his head,

"Originally I wanted to take wandless to see how much better I could get at it, but my godfather stopped me and explained what wandless at Aether meant." Leon nodded,

"Alright then, I'll go by Professor Alexei's office later today and ask if I can drop it." Dante nodded,

"I'm pretty good at it, I can help you with the basics. I don't know how good of a teacher I'd be, but I'll try." Leon nodded,

"Cho and the others said you were the best defense teacher since Lupin. Actually they said you were better than him." Dante shook his head,

"I'm not. He had some heavy restrictions for that class, but in reality he's a pretty awesome teacher." Leon shook his head,

"It still stands that they said you're a good teacher. I don't know why you're so self-depreciating, but you have lots of talents." Dante nodded,

"Thanks Leon! Now let's choose our blades." Dante ended up choosing a Flamberge sword. Professor Vilkas on seeing the sword he'd chosen said,

"That one's a specially made sword. It was designed for a lightning elemental, and once you light it up, it'll stay electric as long as you're holding it. Very nice, but it requires a bit of magic." Dante nodded and sparked the sword, "That's it, that used to be Cyrus' favorite weapon. He donated it around 20 years ago and it's rejected every lightning elemental since. Don't bother returning it, it chose you. Also I'm sure if you asked him Cyrus will give you some tips on how to handle it." Dante stared at the sword in his hand, it felt right in his hands.

"Thank you Professor!" He concentrated on turning off the electric currents, but it struggled against him trying to burst out. He made a note to ask Professor Cyrus about that later.

After lunch the next class was divination. Their teacher was a Dryad named Lilian. She had the class file in and she told them whether or not they had the gift of sight. When she got to Dante she paused,

"You have a gift, but it's blocked. As I can't remove the block I would suggest dropping the class, but you could also go see the Mind Magics professor and ask him what happened to your sight. Even if you recover your sight there's a good chance it's been seriously damaged." Dante nodded and went back to his suite to relax for the next hour. He hadn't _wanted_ to take Divination and this was a perfect excuse to get out of that class. He looked at his schedule, after this he had Transmutation, Runes, Necromancy, Elemental, Animus Sorcery, and then Healing.

Transmutation had gone well, they were studying the rules of transmutation before actually starting on anything. Runes class was actually harder than writing blood runes. He figured this was because runes relied on logic instead of instinct. He had good instincts, but logic was a whole other ballgame. Necromancy class went over safety regulations and their professor told them to be prepared for a raising tomorrow. Elemental had been similar to Divination, he tested all of them for their ability and then assigned them to new teachers depending on which elements they were attuned to. Dante was surprisingly the only lightning elemental in the class. Cyrus on the other hand had expected this,

"It isn't a common gift mortal. Most magicals are attuned to one of the main four elements, which means I only get a few students. I'll see you tomorrow, and bring that sword with you; we'll go over some basic control exercises. Lightning elementals tend to lose control of their element easily, but to make up for it we're also the most powerful. Not that you should tell the others about that tibit." Dante nodded and ran off to animus sorcery meeting Raven and Dmitri on the way.

"Who do we have for Animus Sorcery?" Dmitri grinned,

"Professor Stella-Maris, she's a dark elf and just below Professor Cyrus on the Animus Sorcerer rankings. She only teaches first-form students, and she'll choose an apprentice based on how much raw potential they showed in first year. I'm hoping to do an Animus apprenticeship, and I've heard she's one of the best teachers to do an apprenticeship under." They fell quiet as they stepped into the classroom. Professor Stella-Maris introduced the class.

"Welcome to Animus Sorcery class! I'm Professor Stella-Maris. We'll start out with a basic Animus spell you already know. Can you guess which spell I'm speaking of?" She looked around the room, "No? It is a requirement to enter the school that you have an animagus form. The animagus form is basically a reflection of your soul. Some people can have several animagus forms, this means your soul is unusually complex. For those of you who have a second or third animagus form you haven't been able to use yet, I will offer tutoring on Sundays after breakfast. Be there or find someone else to help you. I will not allow anyone to graduate from Aether without full control of _all_ their Animagi." She glanced at Dante as she said this. She spent the rest of the period explaining what the magicals had learnt about the soul. "Class dismissed! I'll see you all here tomorrow." Dante headed off to Healing, the last period of the day. Everyone was already there facing the school's healer. Most looked terrified of the rumored-to-be-insane djinn, she on the other hand was smiling brightly at them.

"I'm flattered that so many of you have decided to take my class. Welcome to Healing, I am Professor Danvers! I'm going to give you a questionnaire to see how far along you are in healing. Some of you may be ahead in Healing, if that is the case then I suggest you join a higher level class, or you can just drop the class." She waved a hand and a questionnaire popped in front of the students. After they finished the paper graded itself. Dante didn't miss a single question. "Anyone who got a hundred on the test may leave now. A few students including Dante got up and walked away. He decided to head back to his rooms, but to inform Professor Alexei about which classes he was dropping first.

Knock knock. Alexei wondered why a student would be knocking on his office doors now. He opened the doors,

"Dante! What brings you to my classroom now? I'm fairly sure you have a class right now."

"Healer Danvers excused everyone who got a perfect score on their test from the class. I'm here to tell you I'm dropping Divination and Healing." Alexei cocked his head to the side like a cat,

"Why are you dropping Divination? I can sense you have the sight." Dante nodded,

"I do, but according to Professor Lilian said my gift has been blocked. She said I could ask the Mind Magics professor to remove the block, but that it would probably be damaged." Professor Alexei looked troubled,

"It's nearly impossible to break or block a magical gift. I would know, I've met the few who've managed it, and generally speaking the result isn't pretty." Dante shrugged,

"My relatives tried to beat the magic out of me. How hard would they have had to try to actually break that?" Alexei shook his head,

"A magical gift is different from having magic. You can't beat the magic out of someone, they'd die. There's a ritual to drain the magic out of someone, but it kills the person and your relatives wouldn't have been able to do it anyway. They'd need to have magic to actually perform the ritual." Dante asked,

"You know who I am?"

"I taught most of the Marauders with the exception of Peter. I'd say I could recognize the child of a Marauder even if his kitsune form decided it wanted him to have white hair."

"How do you know about my animagus form?"

"A kitsune soulled human is peculiar in two main ways. One it's the only animagus mark which changes hair color, and two your magic curls around you like fox tails. I'd recommend trying to suppress your magic, but you're also a Parseltongue. Speaking of parseltongue, since you have this period free how about I tutor you this period instead?" Dante shrugged,

"Why not?" Alexei grinned,

"You should probably get your familiar for the first part. She'll be of great help." Dante uncoiled her from his torso.

 _Wakey wakey Mer._

 _What trouble can you possibly have gotten into while at school hatchling?_

 _I'm not in trouble this time I promise._

 _That's what they all say._ She turned to face the amused teacher. _Who's he?_

 _My name is Alexei. It's nice to meet you Mer._ Mer hissed in agreement.

 _Another speaker? I haven't met any other speakers before and I'm fairly old._

 _Yes, you are rather old. As a matter of fact your kind is thought extinct._

 _You know what I am? Can you tell me?_

 _I cannot tell you, but I can tell your bonded that he should look through the books of extinct dragons. He should find your particular breed there._ Mer looked at Dante expectantly,

 _Yes I know. I'll get right on it._

 _It's nice to know you're good for something hatchling._

 _You know it wouldn't kill you to say 'thank you' right?_

 _I am a snake._

 _Right, and 'Snake's do not say 'please, thank you, or sorry''._

 _Good you're learning._ Dante had been too distracted with his familiar to notice the Professor retreat into his rooms and return with his familiar.

 _Dante, Mer, this is my familiar Ventus._ Ventus was obviously an occamy. Although he was a little larger than most and he seemed to be a cross between phoenix and a basilisk, which Dante figured must be impossible.

 _Greetings Dante and Mer. It is a pleasure to meet you._ Mer nodded.

 _Greetings Ventus. It is a pleasure to meet you as well._ Dante smiled and waved,

 _Hi Ventus. It's nice to meet you too._ Mer hissed at Dante.

 _Oh why do I have to do everything? Hatchling when greeted with a formal greeting, respond in kind._ Dante blushed and shrugged,

 _It is of no importance to me youngling, but it would be wise to listen to your familiar._ Ventus replied _, then_ Alexei cut in,

 _Now that greetings have been exchanged let's get to the reason I brought Ventus out. Parseltongues are able to call on the power of a snake familiar in a practice called channeling. To channel Mer's power first you need to trust her implicitly. Do you?_ Dante thought about it and looked over at Mer. She looked over at him as if to say 'well get on with it.' He almost laughed. It had only been a few weeks, but he certainly trusted her. She had never lied to him, and her actions tended to be in her best interests or his.

 _With my life,_

 _Good. Now first she needs to inject a small amount of venom to establish a connection._ Mer slithered over and he allowed her to bite him with her 'mild paralytic venom'. The venom had no effect on him. _You have mage sight yes? That makes this next part easier. Reach out to her and pull at her magical core. Now attach it to your own and cast a levitating spell._ Dante followed the instructions and felt as the magic didn't deplete his own magical core. _There now that the connection is fully established you'll be able to draw magic from her whenever both of you consent._

 _Awesome! But how come she can't cast magic if she has such a large magical core?_

 _What do you mean she can't cast magic?_ Mer shook her head,

 _I can cast magic. I'm just healing from my previous injuries._ Dante stared at her in shock.

 _I thought you were already healed._

 _I sleep more than 15 hours a day. How did that not ring any warning bells?_

 _I thought all snakes slept most of the day._ Professor Alexei looked at his clock.

 _You two should get down to your rooms. Your friends should be there soon. I'll see you in class tomorrow._ Dante realizing the time said a rushed goodbye and ran to his rooms. Just as he reached the doors he heard Raven behind him.

"You're a strange human you know? Your animagus mark is white hair, your eyes are an inhuman shade of green, you have an excess of magical power, you're a double legacy, the Headmistress seems particularly interested in you, Professor Alexei is also particularly interested in you, Professor Cyrus doesn't hate you for being human, your familiar is a species of snake that as far as I know doesn't exist, and your wards are impossible for the wards apprentices to break." Dante turned around,

"What are you implying?" Raven smirked,

"You are a mystery I can't solve yet Dante Black. But I'll figure it out eventually." Dante shook his head,

"I don't know the reason for half of the things you said, so I don't know how you think you're going to figure it out."

"Simple by observation and research. The wards I already know the answer to, you're paranoid. And going by the way stuff tends to happen around you there's a good reason for it. I'll figure out the rest in time. Worry not, I have no other deeper intentions besides solving a mystery." Dante snorted,

"You're a regular Sherlock Holmes Raven. I don't know why you didn't decide to change your name to that actually. Speaking of names I think I met your sister at breakfast this morning." Raven nodded,

"She mentioned you briefly when I went to sit with her at lunch."

"So that's where you went. Remy said you were tied up, so we figured you'd fallen victim to another prank." Raven glowered at him.

"Real funny mortal. I'm dying of laughter on the inside. Now let's head inside, I'm tired of standing out here," Dante opened the door and they walked inside. Dante was glad Raven hadn't figured out who he was yet. He didn't want to be Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, any more. He wanted to be Dante Black, the Aether student.

 **Raven's going to be the first one to figure out who Dante** _ **was**_ **, but I'm serious when I say that Harry Potter and Dante Black are different people. I'll be away for a couple days so my next update should be on Sunday or Monday.**


	7. Kitsune Soulled Human

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

 **A/N: Reviews make my world go round =D. I am so so so so so sorry. You would not believe the weekend I've had. The internet guy just left and now I have internet back. Again I'm so so so so so so so so sorry.**

 **To KyuubiChild717: Leon Zabini is Blaise Zabini, ya know that one that shows up with Malfoy in the last movie?**

 **To Kyu9930: That's seriously the nicest compliment I've ever gotten on my work. Miranda Flairgold's last unfinished fic drove me crazy and I just got a bunch of ideas about how she could finish it until it was like 'okay now I have to post something.' Tell me if it seems I'm drawing on her ideas too much please, but I think I'm going to stick with the Harry obsessed with lightning thing.**

The rest of the week blurred by. He had all his normal classes and Parseltongue tutoring with Professor Alexei during what would have been his last period. Elemental class was solely control at the moment, but he knew why. Lightning elementals could lose themselves in their magic. This was dangerous for two reasons. First of all once they lost themselves into the magic they'd never be able to get back to their body. Second it drove whatever magic they were doing to continue until it depleted their magical core and their natural magic killing the creator as it drove the lightning into a storm. As it was for a lightning elemental was the most important skill to learn.

Necromancy was _interesting._ Dante and Raven had joked that their instructor had gotten his brains eaten out by zombies. Their teacher was an extremely scatterbrained djinn, which was uncommon in itself. When he'd asked Scarlet she said the professor had even forgotten to come to his own class a few times. Luckily he wasn't scatterbrained enough to forget proper safety measures when it came to a raising. Students were always inside of a protection when a raising was taking place. Dante had actually done a couple of raisings already. According to the professor he'd shown as much talent at Necromancy as his father, (it seemed all the teachers knew who Dante was despite the white hair) and told him he could probably go for a mastery in Necromancy. As tempting as the offer was, Dante was slightly more interested in a double mastery of Cruor Sorcery and Animus Sorcery. Mostly because both would keep him alive during his search for Horcruxes and the subsequent battle with Voldemort. Not that he was telling anyone _why_ he wanted to have a mastery in both of those subjects. He would've chosen Void Magic above all, but there were only a handful of people proficient in Void Magic, and they didn't need titles like a Master's to know how good another Void Magic wielder was.

Today was Sunday, and Dante was getting ready for a special animagus session with the Animus professor. She expected anyone who had a second or third animagus they didn't have under control to come to this session, and all the ones after until they had all their animagi under control. He didn't know Professor Stella-Maris well enough to have analyzed her character yet, but he did know she wasn't one to be crossed. Theodore Lebeau had already gotten her into a temper and had ended with him hanging from the Animus Sorcery spire for a day and a half. He hadn't seemed to learn his lesson though, so Dante, Raven, and Dmitri were hoping for a round two with something far more embarrassing. Dante had run off to Animus Sorcery immediately after breakfast. In the classroom were three others he didn't recognize and Theodore.

"For the last time Mr. Lebeau you do not have a second animagus form. The uncontrollable urge to transform comes from the poor control you have over your mole form." Dante stifled a laugh; Theodore had a mole as his second form? He wondered what his animagus mark was as the boy stormed out of the classroom. "He's lucky I like his father. Otherwise he'd be the first fatality for the school year. Let's see what will I do to him this time?" Dante had a suggestion,

"Could you do something that lasts a few days? Like make him mute for a few days, or blind, or deaf." The professor smiled at him happily,

"That's an excellent suggestion Dante. I can't believe I didn't think of that myself. I'll deal with that tomorrow though, for now I'd like to talk to you all about your animagi forms. To start with I'll be using privacy charms so that you don't know what the others' forms are." The three groaned, knowing each others' animagi would've given them a head start on that contest. "Rules are rules. I'll start with Mr. Roux." She then proceeded to coach them through on their form individually. Dante had been the last to enter, and he was the last she spoke to.

"My familiar thinks my second form will be reptilian if that is any help." She nodded.

"Familiars are never wrong about animagi forms, but that might be your third form instead. No what is your primary animagus?"

"A kitsune." She nodded and frowned.

"How many tails?"

"Six, every tail after will grow out in two years."

"Well that's going to be a bit of a problem. You're what we call a kitsune soulled human, and as far as I know none of them have ever survived growing out a tail. Also you won't be able to control your other animagi until you have control of your kitsune, in other words. You can't control your other animagi until you have all nine tails, but you're not likely to survive that long in the first place. I honestly have no idea what to do. Who's the head of your tower?"

"Professor Alexei. I'm going to die because of my animagus? You're kidding right?" She shook her head,

"I'll message Alexei right now." Dante nodded and the Professor grabbed a crystal from her desk and concentrated for a minute. "He's on his way. In the meantime would you mind showing me your animagus form?" Dante shook his head and transformed into his white fox form and ran around the room for her to observe. Eventually Professor Alexei walked in.

"Hello Dante, Stella-Maris." He nodded at both of them and asked "What seems to be the problem?" Dante looked at her.

"His animagus form. He has a secondary form, but the kitsune soulled have to have a nine tailed animagus in order to work on their other forms. He said his next tail will generate in two years, but humans never survive the growth of another tail."

"Are you suggesting he be turned?" She nodded, and Dante grew worried. He didn't want to be turned. Vampire culture was not one he'd adjust to easily, and if he was turned he'd be subordinate to whoever turned him. Alexei looked at him amused, "Dante calm down you're projecting. I don't know what you're so worried about, you can't be turned anyway."

:: Why not? :: He shrugged.

"I'm not entirely sure about the mechanics of it. All I know is that your body will reject the change and then try to force out its next tail, dying in the process. That would be a waste of a student with excellent potential. As for dying when you generate a tail, that's not entirely true. It's just that the kitsune soulled humans carry a curse as old as time. There is a way to survive, I just don't think you'd be interested in the sacrifice."

:: What is it? ::

"First of all you'd never be able to have a child. The line of Merlin would effectively end with no hope of another descendant. Second you'd be immortal, and not a normal vampiric immortal. You'd never be able to die no matter how close to death you were. You'll watch as your friends die and age, day in and day out until the realities fade. You'll be frozen at 23 for the rest of time. Third you'll never be able to enter Earth Reality again, I'd imagine this won't be too much of a problem for you though. Fourth you won't be human anymore, I'm not entirely sure, but I think some of your morals will die with your humanity. Granted if you're attending Aether I think you've already lost those particular morals. Still you'd be a kitsune in the form of a human instead of the other way around. Lastly the angels will come after you. They won't be happy you defied their curse, and they'll be even less happy about your identity. I don't know if this will actually be cause for worry or not, as the angels with one minor exception never leave the ruins of Olympus. Also I think once they knew you they'd really like you, they do after all respect power, and if they can overcome their prejudice about your family they'll love you. Angels would be great allies, Aether would know. One of our professors is an angel, maybe you should take his class next year."

:: Why would they curse kitsune soulled humans? ::

"Well that's actually a very good question, and I need to do some more research before I give you my answer. Now transform back to human, I think you've shown off enough for one day." Dante tried to transform back, but found that he couldn't.

:: I can't! ::

Alarmed at the prospect of losing his favorite student this year Alexei cut a few runes into the area around his eyes and looked at the white kitsune with glowy gold eyes and growled at him. "A magical block? Dante can you please tell me how you ended up with a magical block in your core?"

:: What's a magical block? Or rather how does it work? ::

"It's a piece of illegal magic that even Aether wouldn't teach. Its main purpose is to stop a child's accidental magic, but in the process it generally drains out their magic until they have none left. I can't think of any magical being or human who would put a magical block on a _human child_ though _._ Especially since accidental magic only comes out when children are in need of something, unhappy, or in a life threatening situation. It would have had to be placed when you were very young. " Mer snaked out from under a desk and hissed at Professor Alexei,

 _The magical signature smells old. The person who placed the block was nearly 150 and is recently deceased. The block is currently in the process of unraveling._ Dante shook his head, 150 years old and recently deceased huh? Three guesses who it was and the first two don't count. Alexei nodded at her.

"Thank you Mer, Dante you seem to know who placed the block on your magic. That information might help me with removing the block." He looked at him expectantly.

:: I think it was Dumbledore. ::

Alexei started, "Why would he put a magical block on you? Don't the humans think you're their only hope against Voldemort?"

:: I was one of Voldemort's horcruxes. Dumbledore believed I had to die in order for the horcrux to be destroyed. Another thing is that Dumbledore doesn't always do the proper research before he does something. How many books are there in Earth Reality that say why magical blocks are illegal magic? ::

"None."

:: There you go. Now can you undo the block? ::

"Don't be stupid. Of course I can. As if a senile old man can cast stronger magic than me. I'm insulted Dante." The kitsune snorted.

:: Can you hurry up? The longer I stay the more questions Raven is going to ask when I get back. If he can manage to get his hands on an Alumni record I think he'll figure out who I am. ::

"You should be nicer considering I'm doing you a favor. Be aware that all favors after this will have a price unless I decide to be nice. What are you going to do when he figures it out?"

:: Hope to God he understands why I didn't say anything, and ask him to keep quiet about it. ::

"You need an actual plan Dante."

:: I know I know, I just can't figure out what I should do. ::

"If it helps any I doubt he'll really care all that much. As far as anyone connected with Aether is concerned Dante Black is your true name and Harry Potter is just an alias."

:: That's not really what I'm concerned with. ::

"Oh that's right you're more worried about the insane megalomaniac terrorizing most of Europe. You're paranoid that he'll find out that you attend Aether and he'll come storming up here past our impenetrable defenses and wards to fight you before you've managed to destroy his remaining horcruxes."

:: They said the Titanic couldn't sink Alexei. ::

"The Titanic was sunk by an impressive iceberg created by angry ice fairies. It wouldn't have sunk had there been no magical interference. That's a terrible analogy Dante, try another one."

:: Hogwarts was supposedly the safest place on Earth. ::

"Humans don't know the meaning of safe."

:: You sounded like Theodore Lebeau for a moment there. Troy was said to be impenetrable. ::

"Don't compare me to that insect. You wouldn't believe how annoying he's been. Said no self-respecting vampire would obey a human's orders. I'd like to see him try to defy Morgana. As for Troy, there really was no accounting for the gullibility of the Trojans."

:: I'll get back to you on the analogy thing. Are you planning on doing anything to him? I promised Remy I'd tell him if anything really funny happened to his brother. He was pretty bummed out about missing Professor Stella-Maris hang him from the spire. ::

"Ah yes the better Lebeau. Do you suppose he'll seek revenge against whoever kills his brother?"

:: Well yeah he probably will, but not for the reason you'd think. He's just waiting for a sufficient reason to do it himself. At the rate Theodore's going I'd say he'll only have to wait for the end of the year. ::

"In that case I think I'll stay out of it. I need a vampire's soul for a project I'm working on. Maybe I'll take his little sycophant girlfriend instead."

:: There's the famed vampire cruelty. Honestly and Raven wondered why I would never become one of you. :: Alexei shook his head,

"You're being rude now; shut up and sit in the circle. Do you have any of your blood in vials?"

:: After your warning that you'd rip out the entrails of any student who didn't? Mer can fetch them for you. :: Said snake was already coming back with several vials of his blood.

"Looks like its about to save your life. You should quit your grumbling already. It's not my fault you have a knack for trouble that is second to none. Now you should never have any occasion to use this, but with your track record pretty much anything goes. Pay close attention." Alexei drew runes in the ground around the circle in Dante's blood. When he was done he opened one of his veins and added a couple drops of his own blood. The runes each flashed a different color and Dante started to feel a little dizzy. He nearly passed out, but used his magic to keep himself awake. He tried to shift back and ended up as a human again.

"Hey where'd Professor Stella-Maris go?" Mer answered him.

 _She left after she suggested you be turned. Your waves of panic gave her a headache and nearly forced me out of the room as well._

 _Sorry about that. I'd just rather not spend my life subordinate to someone else._

 _Yes well next time please contain your panic. Besides even if you were turned I think any vampire would have their hands full trying to keep you subordinate. You're far too independent hatchling._

 _She's got a point you know. I don't think_ I _could keep you under control and I'm one of the oldest._ Dante nodded.

"It's not like it's possible anyway or was that just a lie to calm me down?" He narrowed his eyes at Alexei who rolled his in return.

"It's the truth, and it's the only reason Cyrus allows me to be in the same room as you. Otherwise he'd raise all kinds of hell about vampires and weres staying away from you." Dante was puzzled.

"Why?"

"We've had some problems in the past."

"That's an understatement if I've ever heard one." Dante turned to face the speaker.

"Headmistress!" She smiled kindly at him.

"How many times do I need to tell you Dante? Call me Professor or Morgana. All of my students do. I believe Alexei has a similar policy with his Cruor students."

"Yes Professor."

"Chill out I won't smite you for informality like some people I could mention." She gestured at Professor Alexei who immediately defended himself.

"It is vampire custom for the younger vampires to be unfailingly polite to their elders unless they are allowed to be informal. I grant that right to my students, and that's rather generous of me. Now what business did you have here Morgana? I highly doubt this is just a social visit."

"No you are correct. I'm afraid the first fatality of the first-form students has taken place. Your bloodmagic chambers will need to be cleaned out."

"Let me guess. Mr. Daniels went ahead and performed that ritual I specifically told him would fail while I was away didn't he?" The Headmistress nodded.

"I'll clean out my chambers and tell my classes to be more careful in the future. Not that they'll keep it in mind for very long, but it may put off the next one for a week or two. Dante go to your rooms, get some rest, and refrain from using magic for a few hours. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodbye Professors." Dante waved and walked into his rooms, which were miraculously empty, and he went straight to bed. He woke up at 5 PM to his alarms ringing. As he'd expected it was Lila and the others,

"Hey guys! Are we heading off for dinner?" He asked yawning. Willow answered him,

"Yes you shouldn't miss two meals in a row. Especially not right now before the deaths start."

"You heard about Daniels?" They nodded.

"The question is how do you know about it? You've been asleep since it happened." Dante shook his head.

"I had a rather crazy morning. You know that class Professor Stella-Maris had with everyone who had two or more animagi forms? Well it turns out not only is my animagus blocking the potential for my second, it's also probably going to kill me in two years. She called in Alexei to figure out how to keep me alive and the alternative he knows of isn't all that appealing, I think I'd rather die. After that I couldn't get out of my animagus form because of some magical block. Professor Alexei managed to break it, but that was my only free favor, and it took a lot out of me. After he was done the Headmistress came in to tell him he had to clean whatever is left of Daniels off his chambers so he dismissed me and told me to head straight for bed. And now here we are." Remy whistled.

"You know all of the interesting stuff happens around you Dante. Who would put a magical block on a kid though? That stuffs been banned for like a hundred years, and it isn't like there isn't a good reason for it. Most of the time it kills the person with the block before they hit their magical maturity."

"I know, but the person who put the block on me, I'm of the opinion he was a senile old man. That or he's obsessed with his Greater Good. Thank goodness he's dead now." Willow smile was strained,

"Well there really is no accounting for senile old men, but more importantly what do you mean your animagus will kill you in two years, and what's the alternative? Becoming a vampire?"

"I mean that I will most likely die in two years. No the alternative isn't turning into a vampire. If that were the case I'd probably do it. It's much worse and I'd much rather not talk about it. Besides, maybe there's another way." Raven stared at him,

"You know I looked up the white haired animagus mark. Nothing showed up which means you either lied, or it's incredibly rare. Normally I'd have trouble believing the latter, but this is you we're talking about and coupled with the fact you said it will kill you I'd guess none have ever survived the transition, and it's incredibly rare. Am I right?"

"If I were to go ahead with it I'd be the first as far as I know, and there's a reason for it. Even Alexei doesn't like the alternative and he's a vampire."

"Your unfounded prejudice against our kind hurts me Dante. You sound like a fae instead of a human."

"The main difference being that humans forget about how you prey on our kind and fae don't."

"There's no winning with you Dante. Anyway did you learn anything interesting while you were with the Professor?"

"Yeah he's going to use Amelia's soul in some kind of project he's doing. I'm assuming from his expression that her soul will probably be destroyed in the process. Oh and Professor Stella-Maris is going to do something to your brother soon. She also said he doesn't have his mole animagus under control and he got mad at her and stormed out of the room calling her names." Remy and Raven shrugged,

"No big loss to us concerning Amelia, and Theodore deserves everything coming his way. Now let's get to dinner, today should be interesting." It was tradition at Aether to declare alliances at dinner after the first fatality of the year. It was sad Daniels had died, but it was his own fault for being stupid. At least this way he'd helped provide the entertainment for dinner. They rushed off for dinner.

They arrived just in time. As they sat down at the circular table that had become theirs the fourth-form students started announcing their alliances. Veronique, Raven's sister, would be speaking for both of them, as she was the clan's heiress.

"Vampire clan Chevalier has formed alliances with Quicksilver of the Seelie court, Jared Hunter the werewolf, Scarlett Kline the human, Ara the Dark Elf, Dante Black the human, Dmitri Belkov the djinn, Willow of the Mnemosyne, Manolo Rodriguez the werecat, Remy Lebeau the vampire, Aurora the Wood Elf, Leon Zabini the human, and Lila of the dryads." In turn each of the people called came forward and nodded. At first Dante had thought this system was archaic, but Dmitri had explained that if someone with formal alliances were killed by anyone in any form except an honor duel, their allies would be allowed to seek retribution. He'd had no problem with the system after that. He watched as the rest of the fourth-form students declared their alliances. The eldest goblin also included him in alliances with the goblin nation, which earned him strange looks from his friends and others in his year. When they finally finished calling out alliances they sat down to eat and discuss what they'd heard. Raven decided to be nosy and ask Dante about the goblins,

"Hey Dante how'd you end up as an ally of the goblin nation? They don't like humans, but since the beginning of the year they've been nothing but friendly towards you." Dante shook his head,

"Sorry Raven, I'm not allowed to say." He nodded,

"You have an inordinate amount of secrets for a mortal." Dante smirked,

"Oh so you thought vampires had a monopoly on the mysteriously secretive thing? Hate to break it to you Raven, but you most certainly do not." Then he remembered,

"Hey can you tell me which myths about vampires are false?" Raven nodded.

"Of course, why? I thought you weren't interested in becoming one of us." Dante glowered, "Okay then which myths do you want to know about? Sunlight isn't harmful, but our eyes are sensitive to sunlight. I can eat garlic and drink holy water. I have a reflection. We drink blood regularly and have sharper incisors. We're mostly nocturnal. Anything in particular you want to know?"

"Why do you drink blood? How do you kill a vampire? Why do you sleep so little? Why can you eat normal food?"

"Let's start with how to kill a vampire as the rest will take more explaining. A stake in the heart will work or you can cut off their heads. There's also a special kind of poison that will weaken vampires, it's made from the Sanguis flower. A vampire's system depends on blood, when you're turned you essentially die and are reanimated under the power of another. In order to keep said body from rotting and to keep it running we need blood flowing through our bodies. We can't produce any of our own so we take it from another person. Strong magical blood can even give us different powers. We sleep only a few hours because after we eat we have to sleep to get the blood running through our bodies. We can eat because as long as we have blood in our system we function mostly like humans." Remy interrupted,

"We don't have to eat food, but we can derive a small amount of nutrition from food and put off our feeding for a little while. Also blood bags won't work, we need fresh blood. The school has prisoners in the dungeons we can feed from, but we can also feed from our classmates if we wish. They probably won't feed from you unless you offer or are willing, as feeding from an unwilling source is seen as barbaric with the exception of feeding from criminal scum. Child molesters are often chosen as blood bags. Understand?"

"Yes thank you, that clears up a few things. Why do they say to be in our dorms at 11 PM then?" Raven and Remy shared an uneasy glance,

"That's when the older vampires have their meetings. They choose the day at random and anyone who stumbles across the meeting will be fed from and have their memories wiped. We're invited starting this week, I'm just waiting for Veronique to give me a time and place. Just stay in your rooms and you'll be fine."

"Can you read someone's mind while you feed from them?"

"Not exactly. We'll get an impression of what they're feeling and how good their Occlumency is. It depends on how old you are. Professor Alexei probably can, but a vampire under two hundred? Unlikely. Still there are ways to protect your mind while being fed from. There are privacy wards that apply even to what goes on in your head. For example if you were thinking about Aether, the vampire wouldn't be able to see your thoughts or root through your brain. Most old families have similar privacy wards for any major family secrets. I wouldn't be surprised if you could use a family name to keep vampires out of your mind. Ask your guardians, it could come in handy someday. Especially with you being you." Dante rolled his eyes and assented. It was time to write to the Marauders, he also had some new information about one of the horcruxes. Apparently it was in the Room of Requirement. The only reason he knew was that he'd tried scrying for the horcruxes and one showed up in the upper levels of Hogwarts. He'd ask Padfoot to try and find it and then turn it over to the goblins. He relayed this message to the goblin who had declared Dante's alliance to the goblin nation.

"I have a message for Ragnok. Would you be able to get it to him?" The goblin nodded in affirmation, "The horcrux is at Hogwarts, I'm sending Padfoot after it. He'll try to get it to Gringotts to be destroyed." The goblin's eyes widened.

"A soul shard? I will get the message to him immediately. Goodbye Mr. Black." The goblin rushed off to get the message to Ragnok. Harry sat down and wrote a letter to the Marauders. He included information about his first classes, the location of the horcrux, his new friends, Mer's greetings, and the mysterious plans set in motion by the Headmistress.

After some thought he decided not to tell his guardians about his animagus form's curse and his impending death. That just wasn't the kind of stuff you sent in a letter, it'd be best if he told them in person. Besides they'd probably just get upset and it'd distract them on their retrieval mission. He was slightly worried about Snape. Padfoot never had the best sense, and from the stories they'd told it was clear that whatever memory modifications his father had done had probably gone horribly wrong and Snape now hated all of the Marauders. He knew that if Snape saw Padfoot alive not only would he report it to his master, but he'd also try to kill Padfoot. Key word being try, Aether graduates weren't easy to kill, and someone who'd only attended Hogwarts would find that out immediately. Just before he was trampled by the angry Aether alumni ready to kill whoever had tried to harm one of their own. There was a difference, an Aether alumnus could kill another alumnus, but a non-Aether alumnus would die if they tried to kill an Aether graduate. Alumni didn't kill each other that often though, it only ever happened when there was a serious breach of conduct. Dante after posting his letter through the Mailing tower headed back to his rooms to study for his Transmutation test tomorrow. He'd deal with Snape himself if it came down to it, but he hoped he wouldn't have to. He also hoped there was some sort of plan that included restoring Snape's memories. Then again Moony often had a back up plan for his back up plans lettered from A1-Z20. Now he just hoped he'd pass that horrible Transmutation test coming up tomorrow. Seriously who came up with tests? Some sort of expert torturer looking for a new way to break the minds of his prisoners?


	8. The Big Reveal

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.**

 **A/N: I'm moving soon, and there's a hurricane heading towards my house. This may be my last post for a while, but I promise I won't wait any longer than absolutely necessary.**

Dante got a letter from Padfoot a week later that he'd deposited the horcrux at Gringotts. Granted this he already knew thanks to the goblin populace at Aether, but it was good to hear it from Padfoot as well. What he had not known was that Talon Prince, formerly Severus Snape was staying with the Marauders. From what he read this was mostly a good thing, but a small part of him wondered if this could be some kind of ruse. He decided to hold judgment until he met Talon in person and kept his letter carefully neutral on the topic.

Another less well-known fact about Aether was that the first death of the year was always accidental, and only after the first death was anyone else allowed to kill another student. Thus Dante found himself in a duel after Void Magic while he was hurrying off to Cruor Sorcery. His opponent was another student who took that class with him, judging by the inhuman speed and amber eyes he guessed the other was some kind of were,

"I don't have time for this! Class starts in like three minutes you idiot! Why couldn't you have just waited until the end of the day?" The were did not acknowledge his question and Dante swept his hand to the right sending him crashing into another wall. He ran up to Cruor Sorcery to find a shocked class, and a _very_ amused Professor Alexei. "I'm not late so I don't know why you're looking at me like that!" Alexei laughed at him,

"No worries Dante, as a matter of fact you're a minute early. I told Henri not to bother, but I suppose this should teach him." Dante stared at Alexei,

"Wait, you knew I would be attacked today? Why didn't you tell me?" Alexei shrugged carelessly,

"Of course I knew. Henri had to get it cleared through me to duel you before class. I gave him a ten-minute extension. Why should I have told you anyway; it wasn't like you were going to lose." Dante decided Henri must be the name of the student who'd attacked him,

"How would you know?" The vampire waved a hand at him,

"If you have any more complaints save them for later. I have a class to teach." Henri came into the class, "A minute late Mr. Hunter. Go sit next to Mr. Black." Henri sat down next to Dante who gave him a death glare and then gave the smirking Alexei a stronger death glare.

"Today we will be working in pairs. Whoever you're sitting with is fine. The objective is to spot the mistakes in each other's form. You'll start out with blood whips and work your way up as high as you can go without dying of blood loss." Dante looked at Henri and objected strongly,

"What do you mean work with him? He tried to kill me!" Alexei sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

"Hold your complaints for the end of class Dante. Besides Henri wasn't trying to kill you, I would've told you if it was anything more serious than a mock duel." Dante looked at Alexei suspiciously, shrugged, and turned back to Henri.

"Well let's get started." Henri grinned,

"It's nice to meet you Black, my name is Henri Hunter." Dante glared,

"It's not nice to meet you Hunter, my name is Dante Black."

"Ouch! Hey listen, it was nothing against you. I just asked Professor Alexei if a human should be in this class and he told me he knew you were cut out for this. I asked him if I could try and duel you in the hallway and he gave me the go ahead. Again nothing against you," Dante's glare lessened, but only slightly,

"And it didn't occur to you that perhaps you should ask for a duel, instead of making me worry that I would be late to class? Or to tell me you okay'ed this with the Professor to give us more time?" Henri looked sheepish,

"Uh no," Dante sighed and looked at him exasperated,

"Look buddy, if I hadn't been in a rush to get to class I probably would've killed you. Mostly because I'm paranoid as hell, but also because you set out no rules for the duel, you just attacked me. In the future please think before you act." Henri nodded, "Now that that's out of the way are you related to Jared Hunter?" Henri nodded again,

"Jared's my cousin, but he's more like my big brother. He was thrilled that I got into Aether, but I haven't seen him much. He's so busy working on his Curse-breaking Mastery, he doesn't have any time to do anything else. How did you know anyway?" Dante shrugged,

"Your last name, the fact that you're a were, or the familial resemblance, take your pick. Anyway let's get started. I've worked my way up to the rapiers, but I haven't tried them all one after the other." Henri nodded,

"We'll alternate so that you can sit down and regenerate some blood in between. I'll go first, here's my blood whip." They spent the rest of the period correcting each other's forms, they each came up with about a dozen corrections in blind spots the other didn't know they had. "Dante move your elbow out a little, you're hunched up. Don't lock your knees keep them loose, that's it. I can't see any other problems with your stance. Let's switch." Dante shook out his blood rapier.

They had started working with blood weapons a couple days ago, and so far he could do the blood whip, bullets, daggers, and rapier. He didn't want to try for the longsword yet. There was a blood regeneration ritual he was working on that was nearly finished. After that he'd be able to generate enough blood for any of his side projects. Or at least he hoped so, he couldn't seem to find any runes that would cooperate with him. He decided to ask Professor Alexei after class.

"Class dismissed! I hope you found your partner helpful as these will be your pairs for the rest of the year." Dante and Henri smiled at each other. They weren't completely on par as Henri was still learning the blood daggers, but he had a good eye for form. Dante approached Professor Alexei,

"Professor I have a problem," Alexei nodded, "I'm working on my new ritual, but none of the runes I've tried seem to fit."

"Well I expected this problem with everyone in this class eventually, but I do believe you're a month early. What's the ritual for?"

"A blood regeneration ritual, I'm going to need it soon because I'm working on the longsword next." Alexei nodded,

"I think you're currently the only one in the class who's gotten that far, Raven should catch up with you in a few days. Anyway for a blood regeneration ritual which is considered healing, you'll need Older Futhark. Here take this one and try to find something that suits." He picked up a heavy tome from his bookshelf, "Now then have you decided what you're going to do about your tails and your situation in Britain?" Dante shrugged,

"How bad is it over there? I figured I'd just do my best to kill him in two years or less." Alexei groaned,

"While I can understand not liking the alternative you've still got a lot of magical potential that will go to waste. Britain isn't doing well. The statistician class has estimated that by the end of this war the magical population will be at least halved. Also the wizarding world will have no choice, but to reveal their existence. That won't be pretty." Dante shook his head,

"I don't know what you want me to do, I've done everything I can. For Voldemort to die I need to destroy two more horcruxes. One is Nagini and the other is a locket that was supposed to be in a cave out in the middle of nowhere. Supposedly R. A. B. destroyed it, but I know otherwise. It's in the Ministry of Magic, with one Dolores Umbridge. Vile toad that she is, I doubt it was capable of making her any nastier than she already is!" Alexei raised an eyebrow at that, Dante catching his expression defended himself, "What? She is a vile toad! She used a blood quill on students and hates all _dark creatures!_ She should hate herself, she's the darkest creature I've ever had the displeasure of meeting!" Alexei only heard one thing and grabbed Dante's arm and ripped away the glamour to see the words 'I must not tell lies' inscribed into his hand.

"Your hatred is completely justified as far as I'm concerned. How did she carve it into your hand that clearly?" Alexei snarled,

"Detentions, I had many detentions with her while she was teaching at Hogwarts." Dante sighed,

"I cannot imagine how such a terrible person could be allowed to work at a school. A vampire would never have allowed this. We value our children too much. What is Dumbledore? Blind?"

"Try senile and now dead, Still you vampires are capable of harsh punishments." Alexei waved a hand,

"We do not use _blood quills_ as a form of punishment for children. It is possible for even a vampire to die if this is used too often. As a matter of fact sit down, I'm going to check your blood count and such. What do you have next period? That's your free period no? You're going to stay here a few more minutes," Alexei cut a bunch of runes into his hand. His eyes glowed white and he scanned Dante carefully, not saying anything for a few minutes,

"Alright Mr. Big Bad Vampire, I'll give. What's wrong with me?" Alexei shook his head,

"Are you entirely sure you're human? You have a history of malnutrition, which explains your height. Nearly every bone in your body has been broken, at least twice. Your blood count is ridiculously low. The only thing that's keeping you standing is your magical core. Until you're on potions and such to fix this you can't perform any blood rituals, and I mean it Dante. You aren't even allowed a blood bullet right now." For a moment Dante looked mutinous, then sullen.

"Fine, I'll go see if Leon can give me the potions to correct this." He finished his comment under his breath, "Not going to that insane healer under any circumstances,"

"I'm sure Leon will be able to brew the potions. You'll be back and doing your blood regeneration rituals in a couple days." Dante snorted and stalked out of the room not even bothering to glance backwards at his teacher. Mer stuck her head out of his clothes to hiss at him,

 _Who taught you your manners hatchling? You don't ignore an elder like that even if you are angry with them._

 _Oh sorry, I didn't know. What should I do?_

 _Nothing now, he won't attack because he knows you meant no disrespect, but in the future…_ She let that hang in the air for a few seconds,

 _I will say goodbye properly, I promise. Now then, how do you feel about reading that extinct dragons book he gave us before?_

 _I would like that._ He turned into his empty apartment. Lately all his friends had found some way or other into his apartment. So it was a miracle he was alone with his familiar. Honestly he suspected Lila had something to do with it. He rummaged around his bookshelf. He'd stored it away from curious eyes hoping Aurora and Willow wouldn't decide his rooms needed to be redecorated again. They'd already done it once or twice since the original redecorating. There were picture frames with him and his new friends everywhere, they'd even gotten their hands on a few pictures of him and the Marauders. The creepy part was that he didn't remember anyone taking these pictures even though he knew the stories behind them. He took out the book and flipped to a page on Water Dragons.

 _Listen to this. Water Dragons are the only Morphian Morphiped ever proven to exist. They are believed extinct as Marina, suspected to be the last of her kind died a few years ago. There is some speculation that she only faked her death to get away from the magical zoo she was encased at. Regardless, Morphian Morphipeds start out as a sea foam colored snake and are able to transform into a proper dragon a few months after they complete a familiar bond with a powerful wizard. They also have the unique ability to transform into a ball of water, which they seem to like best. Water Dragons always choose a parseltongue with mage sight as their bonded._

 _Something about that sounds familiar. I can't remember though. All I can remember is my age and then waking up in that garden. It doesn't matter where I came from. A familiar bond overrides all other bonds except that of a mate._

 _Well that's alright then, but what if whoever owned you before wants you back?_

 _I will bite them._

 _You think that would solve any problem would you?_

 _I have a poison strong enough to kill a few dozen vampires in a couple seconds._

 _Ah, that would solve any problem on second thought._

 _That's what I thought._

 _Now that we know what you are, what do you want to do about it?_

 _I'll just wait another couple of months. Our familiar bond is only a month or so old. Maybe we can start with the transforming into water thing._ He tried siphoning magic into her and by the end of a half hour she could turn her tail into water.

"Dante incoming! I can't hold Raven away any longer!" Dante spun on his heel freaking out looking at Willow and Lila.

"Did he hear any of that?" Lila nodded, "Fuck! Why didn't you say anything earlier?" Raven walked in,

"I believe the real question is 'Why didn't you say anything earlier?' It's been two weeks Dante, or should I say Harry Potter?" Raven sneered at him, "What did you think? Weren't we trustworthy enough to know? Willow and Lila obviously do." Dante hung his head,

"It's not like that Raven. Daisy has known since we were little kids, and Lila saw it in a vision. Every person I tell runs a risk. The risk of knowing or befriending Harry Potter. Believe me, Ron and Hermione have been targeted for years because of me. I don't want that to happen to you guys." Raven's eyes softened,

"I'm a vampire Dante, I didn't think I'd have to remind you of that. We're nearly indestructible, and I know for a fact that Moldy Voldy himself can't kill one of us. He actually tried to kill one of the Bordeaux clan yesterday." Dante looked worried,

"Just because they can't kill you doesn't mean they can't torture you."

"Actually they can't do that either seeing as we're able to turn off the nerves in our bodies." Remy contributed from the doorway where all his other friends were congregated, "So what's this about you being Harry Potter? I thought we'd made it clear that your name here is your real name from here on out." The others nodded and he smiled,

"Thanks you guys, I guess I just worry too much don't I?" Aurora nodded,

"No offense or anything, but I've never heard of a Harry Potter and I sincerely doubt any of the other elves have either." Dmitri shook his head,

"I've heard the name, but I can't remember any of the details. Something about a basilisk?" Dante nodded,

"I killed a basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets a few years back. It was nothing special. I just drove the sword up into its mouth, but in my defense the thing had gone insane." Manny smiled,

"I've heard of the name and about the defeating Voldemort when you were a baby, but I figured it was just a rumour. Is it true then?" Dante shook his head,

"Not in the way they think. My mother did some kind of ritual, her life for mine and he died." Leon shook his head,

"Dang Dante! That makes so much more sense than what we've been told." Raven looked between Leon and Dante,

"He knew?" Dante nodded,

"Of course. We went to Hogwarts together. What was I supposed to tell him? No, I'm not Harry Potter, I just look a lot like him for no reason. Yeah that would've gone over real well." Willow looked back and forth, Raven had sounded jealous and Dante had sounded defensive? Oh this would be interesting! It would be a few years though considering how _obtuse_ both boys could be.

"Alright now that we know who you used to be, do you want to answer some of our other questions?" Remy asked, "Like whether or not you can speak Parseltongue? And why Voldemort is after you?" With a jolt Dante remembered this was their lunch period. They'd be able to keep up their inquisition for an hour and food had been sent to his room. He shared a look with his familiar. This would be one long lunch period.

"Alright I'll answer your questions, but first Leon can you make me some nutrient potions and blood replenishers? Alexei said I couldn't do any blood magic until I was on a potion regiment." Leon nodded,

"I'll have them ready tonight. In exchange I want those Wandless lessons," Dante shook his hand.

"Deal! Now who wants to start?" Dante said squaring his shoulders to face the firing squad.

 **Sorry it was so short, but I have to finish packing. That pairing between Raven and Dante wasn't supposed to be there, but I don't know. It sort of just wrote itself in. If you're homophobic tough luck, but if there's someone else you'd prefer I'll listen to any suggestions.**


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